While musical icon Joni Mitchell declared over 50 years ago that we were all stardust, traditional, photogravure prints had been employing the same star-like patterns we can see in the sky today to render photographs on paper for about 100 years. Halftone dots were introduced around the same time and were easier to make photographic prints from, but random dots were and are more artful – containing a superior richness with more subtle tonal gradations.
Detail of the Andromeda Galaxy taken by Hubble. Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton, B.F. Williams, and L.C. Johnson (University of Washington), the PHAT team, and R. Gendler
Thanks to the trusty Hubble Space Telescope (now with support from the amazing new Webb telescope) we can now see so much more about what makes up our universe.These star patterns of the Andromeda Galaxy (below left), have patterns very similar to that of aquatint screens (below right), or dust patterns used in traditional photogravure prints on copper plate. These are called stochastic patterns.
Star Pattern
Aquatint Screen
Left: Detail of the Andromeda Galaxy taken by Hubble. Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton, B.F. Williams, and L.C. Johnson (University of Washington), the PHAT team, and R. Gendler
Right: Early prototype of Intaglio Editions’ custom aquatint screen scanned from an 1800 dpi stochastic pattern printed on film by an imagesetter.
Essentially any kind of repeating dot pattern will hold ink, but there is something satisfying about these random dots, which are so fine, that under close inspection, you can’t see dots, so much as tones.
Stochastic patterns can be found in nature, and as a byproduct of man-made technology, such as analog reception static in a TV monitor, or even in computer encryption.
