Record tone

Plate tone , also rag tone or hand tone , is a term from graphic art and describes the printing of the plate surface in gravure printing processes . The tone of the plate is produced when pulling off a plate that is not completely polished. Actually unprinted areas that should appear pure white on the paper are given a more or less pronounced color tone in the printing ink. Many artists see it as a sign of technically inadequate treatment.

Since the end of the 19th century, it has been consciously used as an artistic medium on various occasions - for example by Edvard Munch and Emil Nolde . For this purpose, in the so-called retrous saga , a rag is brushed over the already colored printing plate and the color from the depressions on the raised, actually color-free metal surface is smeared. This gives the prints a warmer base shade than the pure white print with blank plates.