TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

Always keep in mind that the only reason for you to take a news photograph is to get it published. A print suitable for personal viewing may be wholly unsuitable for reproduction in a newspaper or magazine.

Most print media use the halftone reproduction process in which photographs are converted into a pattern of dots. These dots vary in size according to the intensity of the tone they will produce. In light areas, the dots are so small they are almost invisible. In dark areas, the dots are so close together they look like a solid mass of black. The amount of printing ink applied by the dots, of course, is in proportion to the light and shaded areas of the original print.

Because of this factor, photographs intended for reproduction must be clean and bright. The black must be strong enough to withstand a little "watering down." Important halftones in the photograph must be separated clearly, so they will not blend in with each other or become lost altogether in reproduction.

Therefore, a photograph can be good in content and composition, but not usable for reproduction because it is lacking in the following three required technical elements: focus, detail and contrast.

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Focus

"Focus,' as covered in Chapter 11, means that the subject must be distinct and the image sharply defined Focus for reproduction must entail extreme sharpness since halftones lose some of their original sharpness in the reproduction process.

Detail

The halftone will not produce fine detail. Small detail in a newspaper is usually lost; therefore, detail must be overemphasized. The most effective way to emphasize detail is to move in close with the camera and concentrate on small areas. Any detail that is important to a photograph should be as large as possible and adequately lighted by natural light or the addition of fill-in reflectors or flash.

Contrast

Contrast is the difference between the light, dark and the intermediate tones of a photograph. A

photograph with normal contrast will have an image with a full range of tones from white to black with all the intermediate grays. The image will be boldly defined but will not reproduce well. A photograph low in contrast or "flat" has many intermediate gray tones but lacks clear blacks and whites. It has no brilliance or snap, lacks strength and appears dull. It will reproduce in halftones as an indistinct or "muddy" blur. Only a photograph of normal contrast can be considered usable for halftone reproduction.