San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-11-06
NEWSPAPER PICTURES.
POPULAR PROCESSES EMPLOYED BY
THE BIG DAlLIES.

The illustration of newspapers is a new
branch of art. Ever since its beginning
its apprentices have been trying to find out
the simplest and most effective methods
for the reproduction of drawings in order
. that they might be made with the greatest
possible quickness, engraved on metal
with the utmost attainable celebrity and
printed clearly and we'll at the rate of co.
600 copies per hour. To such perfection
have the processes for this purpose been
brought that the turning out of pictures
all ready for the lightning presses is now
adays hardly more than matter of few
minutes time.
THE CHALK METHOD.
Most interesting of the processes en-
ployed in newspaper illustration, from the
point of view of simplicity, is what may be
termed the "chalk method" Take thin
bed of smooth chalk laid upon a metal sur
face, and draw upon it with fine steel
point any picture you may desire. The
steel point will cut the lines of the picture
out of the chalk to the metal, and thus you
will have it in the shape of an intaglio.
Make a stereotype from this intaglio and
you have your metal plate to print the
picture from Could anything be more
simple?
Such is the idea of the chalk process. In
applying it, instead of pure chalk various
mixtures are used, such as plaster of Paris,
which is merely chalk in another shape,
with a certain proportion of a white Caro-
lima clay. The stuff, pulverized and stirred
up with water, is spread over rectangu-
lar sheet of polished steel, as you would
spread a slice of bread with butter to an
even thickness of about one thirty-second
of an inch. Now you are ready to begin
operations as soon as you have baked the
steel plate in an oven for while until the
chalk layer has been rendered perfectly
hard.
A QUICK PROCESS.
1t will hardly do for you to attempt to
draw your picture directly upon the chalk,
lest you make mistakes. The best way is
to make your sketch on a piece of paper,
and then, LAYING it down upon the chalk
surface, go over the lines with a pencil
point, which will indent the paper and
leave marks beneath upon the chalk. Lift
the. drawing and you find under it, in the
chalk, it's reproduction. Now you apply
your steel point directly to the chalk, cut
ting all the lines of the drawing down
through the chalk to the surface of the
steel plate When you finish the opera
ton the dark steel of the plate shows
through the chalk in all the lines of the
sketch. And these lines are perfectly
clean and sharp, thanks to the keenness
of the knifelike steel point employed. All
you have to do for the rest is to pour mott
en- lead over the chalk surface in a mold
and let it get cold The lines that are cut
out of chalk will be reproduced in relief
upon the lead, and thus you will have
your metal engraving to print the news
paper picture from, mounting it for the
purpose on block thick enough to make
it level with the type.
ZINC PICTURES"
Though so advantageous for it's simple.
ity the chalk method is not so good for fine
work in the way of sketches and portraits
as the zinc process" so called. The
former, however, by reason of it's cheap
ness, is most useful to provincial news
papers which cannot afford the compare
lively expensive Photographic plant re-
quired by the latter. In the zinc process,
to begin with, an ordinary photograph
reduced to the required size is taken with
camera of the pen-and-ink sketch drawn
on cardboard by the artist. Next a smooth
plate of zinc is Flowed over" with an albu.
men solution that forms sensitized skin
on the surface; the glass negative of the
picture'is laid upon this zinc plate and the
two are put together in the sunlight. What
are to be the black lines of the printed
drawing are Of course white and transpar-
ent in the negative. The sunlight goes
through wherever the negative is trans
parent, and has the effect of hardening
the sensitized skin beneath, so that it
clings tightly to the zinc. 1t requires only
one minute to perform this operation.
DRAGONS BLOOD FINISHING.
Now the zinc plate is taken and given a
coating over the sensitized skin of lithog-
raphers' ink, rubbed on with a roller,
after which the plate is washed. In ali
places where the sunlight has not struck
the zinc, owing to the opacity of the
glass negative, the sensitized skin readily
washes off, together with ink that covers
it, but elsewhere it clings Thus after the
washing the perfect drawing in ink re-
mains upon the zinc plate. To make the
ink lines harder the plate is brushed with
powdered dragons blood. Then it is
plunged into a bath of acid which eats
away the zinc wherever it is not protected
by the ink, so that when it is taken out the
lines of the drawing are found all raised
above the rest of the surface of the plate,
like map for the blind, and when mount
ed type high" on a metal base you have
your 'cut" ready to print from.
Processes" have infinitely multiplied
within the last few years-so much so, in
fact, that the student of engraving is aghast
at contemplating their variety. At present,
however, the zinc method seems to be the
most available for journals of the period.
At all events, it is employed by majority
of the hiO newsnaners of the country