Posted under Tags
Can someone provide an example of a difference between screentones and halftone? screentones' wiki is wikipedia copypaste, while halftone's make sense, so I'm wondering if the difference between the tags is merely semantic and thiis is yet another example of two tags for the same thing.
If there's no actual difference that can be provided I'll just submit an alias.
The dots/circles in screentones are constant while the ones in halftone goes from big to small or the other way around. That's how I understood it from reading on Wikipedia.
from anime.stackexchange
You're confusing halftoning for printing with screentoning. The principle's the same, but halftoning for printing colors (gray included) is a reproduction process (to make multiple copies) which the original artist has no control over (it's decided by the printer), while actively using screentone beforehand is a shading process which the artist has full control over (in choosing screen frequency and whatnot).
From the very same thread it's clear this is up to controversy, even the wikipedia page for screentone is lacking in enciclopedic terms. As the wikipedia article for color_halftone is decent and makes it clear that it's a printing process I'd say we alias the general tags to screentones and leave color_halftone when it's due to the printing of the illustration to a disposable medium and not the original intent of the artist
Updated
BUR #4932 has been rejected.
create alias halftone -> screentones
create alias halftone_texture -> screentones
create alias halftone_background -> screentone_background
create alias color_halftone -> scan_halftone
After digging for a bit it seems to me that they are just used interchangeably.
The theoretical difference seems to be that halftone is used for greyscale gradients rendered by making dots smaller and smaller, while screentones are usually colored. However this is a speculation on my part, because every reputable source mixes them. Even sites of tools like CSP don't seem to distinguish: https://tips.clip-studio.com/en-us/articles/1258, and Wikipedia contradicts itself as I mentioned in my post above.
As mentioned above, even Wikipedia's page for screentones is dubious, it doesn't really say what's the difference between them and halftones. In fact it seems to imply that halftones, as in dots distributed in a size gradient, are a subset of screentones.
Asking for an alias towards screentones because that seems to be the more general term. Given the size of halftone vs screentones and the hazy definitions, I don't believe there's much point in us trying to enforce a separation anyway.
Also asking for an alias for the color halftone tag because it could be understood to just mean screentones.
We'd need to update halftone_background too, also ben-day_dots exists solely due to its implication search "ben-day_dots -screentones".
ljhkhjkghjybtvhyt said:
We'd need to update halftone_background too, also ben-day_dots exists solely due to its implication search "ben-day_dots -screentones".
Added
Screentone is less used term. Aliases should probably be in different direction.
Also asking for an alias for the color halftone tag because it could be understood to just mean screentones.
Color halftone works by abusing moire effect between halftones of different color rotated N degrees relatively to each other, which results in a distinct rosette pattern. Scan halftone would be more appropriate to tag scans of printed media using color halftone technique (i.e. implicate scan_halftone -> color_halftone). There is also a Photoshop filter with the same name (Filter -> Pixelate -> Color Halftone) imitating said effect.
ZipFile said:
Screentone is less used term. Aliases should probably be in different direction.
Well, I went with screentones over halftone because the first seems to be the more general form of the latter.
ZipFile said:
Color halftone works by abusing moire effect between halftones of different color rotated N degrees relatively to each other, which results in a distinct rosette pattern. Scan halftone would be more appropriate to tag scans of printed media using color halftone technique (i.e. implicate scan_halftone -> color_halftone). There is also a Photoshop filter with the same name (Filter -> Pixelate -> Color Halftone) imitating said effect.
The definition we use seems to specifically refer to scan artifacts, not to digital effects, hence the name change.
nonamethanks said:
Well, I went with screentones over halftone because the first seems to be the more general form of the latter.
There not much info on screentone, tbh. Non-existent wikipedia page does not help either. There is some info on JP wikipedia, but as far as I understand, it explicitly refers to stuff like this (adhesive printed sheets with different patterns, initially produced by Letraset).
The definition we use seems to specifically refer to scan artifacts, not to digital effects, hence the name change.
It's not technically a scan artifact, since it will be reproducible on any scanner if source material is made like so. What we see is a lack of post-processing. Definition needs to be adjusted, I guess.
ZipFile said:
Screentone is less used term. Aliases should probably be in different direction.
Color halftone works by abusing moire effect between halftones of different color rotated N degrees relatively to each other, which results in a distinct rosette pattern. Scan halftone would be more appropriate to tag scans of printed media using color halftone technique (i.e. implicate scan_halftone -> color_halftone). There is also a Photoshop filter with the same name (Filter -> Pixelate -> Color Halftone) imitating said effect.
For the purpose of manga screentone seems marginally more prevalent compare a search to screentone sheet, the adhesive layers mangaka use to shade, to halftone sheet however I also wouldn't be against changing the direction, as you showcased clearly more people know it by 'halftone'.
About color_halftone the tag was meant to be likewise to yande.re screening a blanket term when printing artifacts are visible from a high definition scan and we made changes in topic #17962
From what I've seen, I do think there is a difference between sceentones and halftones, one that is significant enough that I don't think the alias should be reversed.
Halftones seem to be a type of screentone who's purpose is to replicate in-between shades by using varying sized dots of a solid shade. Their purpose is specifically to look like a certain color.
Screentones, on the other hand, seem to be any sort of pre-made texture or pattern that is applied using an adhesive sheet (or, in the case of digital art, the equivalent of such patterns sans sheet). For example, something like this or this is considered a screentone, but I don't think anybody would call it a halftone.
Now of course, if you don't actually care about those types of patterns and are only looking at the dot variety, this distinction doesn't matter and I would be completely in favor of using the more recognized name. But if you do, it's something to consider.
BUR #4947 has been rejected.
create alias screentones -> halftone
create alias halftone_texture -> halftone
create alias color_halftone -> scan_halftone
Ok look I'm just going to submit the alternative and revert the first one to how it was the first time, and people can pick which they prefer. I don't really care which one we're going to use, so long as we use one because clearly nobody knows what the real difference is, especially not the uploaders/taggers.
-1 on both. Specifically on aliasing screentones and halftone either way and on ben-day_dots -> halftone.
Screentones are sometimes halftone but cover lots of other unmoving patterns like those Cattywampus linked above.
Ben Day dots are different from halftone in that they are always of equal size and spacing in a specific area, while halftone uses dots that vary in size or spacing to simulate gradients.
Nameless_Contributor said:
Ben Day dots are different from halftone in that they are always of equal size and spacing in a specific area, while halftone uses dots that vary in size or spacing to simulate gradients.
There's more results of ben-day dots under halftone -greyscale or screentone -greyscale -ben-day_dots than ben-day dots. Clearly nobody cares or has cared enough about the distinction to garden it over the past 10 years (the tag was created in 2012). I don't think it makes sense for us to try and enforce a distinction that nobody will follow, if everyone already uses halftone or screentones indiscriminately.
I've removed the aliasing of ben-day dots for now, I suppose we can always revisit it in the future if it still remains unused.
Updated
create implication halftone -> screentones
The term “screen” is often used to describe any dot or line pattern used in printing, even when the pattern is made on a computer. It’s likely that both the Ben Day screen and the halftone screen contributed to this use of the word.
https://legionofandy.com/2016/08/26/ben-day-dots-part-8-1930s-to-1950s-the-golden-age-of-comics/
Another instance of interchangeable use of screentone: https://tips.clip-studio.com/en-us/articles/1258
The conservative approach if we don't want to remove any existing tags however as of now the request throws error because of how massive is halftone compared to screentones
The term “screen” is often used to describe any dot or line pattern used in printing
Wasn't "screen" usage came from screen printing? I don't really like screen etymology here, since it looks like it is used as a synonym to stencil, which probably made sense like a century ago (in a context of halftone) but not now.
ljhkhjkghjybtvhyt said:
Another instance of interchangeable use of screentone: https://tips.clip-studio.com/en-us/articles/1258
CSP has a tool named Tone (トーン), not a screentone or a halftone. Author of the article (translation?) probably does not know the difference either. Japanese version of the article consistently use トーン name.
I'm sorry for being a contrarian but I really don't think screentones should imply halftone.
On the name, "screentone" is the common name for sheets (screens) of patterns that can be transferred to an artwork to produce shading effects (by means of halftone dots) or other patterns. The Japanese Wikipedia also calls it such (スクリーントーン). As you can see also here, many screentones use halftone dots but many don't, for example in these samples JR-178, 170 and 185 use halftone dots while the others don't.
Of course one can argue that almost all posts tagged screentones will have halftone dots, after all that's the most commonly used type of screentone for flat coloring and shading, there's nothing I can say against that. There are still a few posts that I would tag screentones but not halftone, for example post #1039949 and post #1039947.
