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I was recently introduced to the screen-tone process. [Here's a short video
for reference.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK1qRP_E7Is) Why was this, and
why is this still the prominent technique for coloring manga? What advantages
do screen-tones have over grayscale fills?  


* * *

To clarify, a fill is when an artist uses a solid color to completely color
one area (with marker, paint, pencil, etc...).


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manga-production
Why is manga typically created with screentones rather than grayscale fills?


These are called [Ben-Day dots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben-Day_dots).
Depending on the size and spacing of the dots, you can create different shades
using a single colour - or, with a limited colour palette you can produce
different shades not available to you.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mFGIe.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mFGIe.jpg)

This is often used to **save on printing costs** , as you can get a wide range
of shades/colours with a smaller usage of ink and no need for different levels
of pressure.

Because manga is often a [disposable medium](http://www.japanator.com/do-
manga-magazines-have-to-be-disposable--13724.phtml), keeping costs low is
often a priority for magazines and such to pull a profit - without increasing
the prices for consumers.

You may see this in other non-manga print mediums as well - like free/low-cost
newspapers: [![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rpbIR.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rpbIR.jpg)

It has become associated with comics both East and West - so often shows will
use it for artistic purposes as well.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/PljHM.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/PljHM.jpg)

Other screentones exists, like speed markings, _shoujo sparkles_ and such -
and simply, they are used because it is both easier and faster to get your
desired effect.

As well as providing particular aesthetics, it ensures a colour is solidly
evenly shaded, whereas when colouring manually it is easy to have uneven
shades by angling or pressuring differently across an image.


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It's impractical to use a solid colour or shade of grey when printing manga
and most other forms of printed media. Doing so would require using a separate
ink to render each individual colour or shade. Instead most printing methods
use a limited number of inks that are combined with the background and other
inks using dots (other shapes) to render other colours and shades. For example
a typical ink jet printer combines cyan, magenta, yellow and black dots to
produce various colours, while the black and white pages of most manga use
only black ink. Different shades of grey rendered are using techniques like
hatching and screentones.

For example here's the cover of the first volume of the [Yokohama Kaidashi
Kikou](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama_Kaidashi_Kik%C5%8D) tankoubon by
Hitoshi Ashinano:

[![Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou
cover](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fW3lf.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fW3lf.jpg)

While it looks like the letters of the title are a solid colour, if you look
closely they're actually made up of different coloured dots:

[![Zoomed in detail of cover showing
halftoning](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Iupi2.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Iupi2.jpg)

The cover was probably produced by taking the original artwork, overlaying the
title, and then using some sort of
[halftoning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halftone) process to produce
something that can be reproduced the publisher's colour printing presses.

Inside, the manga is in black and white, and the use of dots and hatching to
represent areas in various shades of grey is more obvious. When the manga was
originally published it was in the manga anthology Monthly Afternoon, probably
on cheap coloured newsprint. The printing process here doesn't support the
fine, almost impossible to see with the naked eye, halftoning used on the
cover of the tankoubon volume.

[ ![B&W detail from inside the manga](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xFY7k.jpg)
](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xFY7k.jpg)

You can see the shadows on the character's arms drawn using a hand drawn
hatching, while [screentones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screentone) are
used to shade her pants, her hair and the guard rail in the background. You
can also see where hand drawn details were added to the screentoned clouds in
the background.

If solid greyscale fills were used in these areas it would require using a
separate ink for shade used. Separate printing plates would have to be
produced for each shade, and the printing process would have to ensure that
each was applied precisely on the page so they don't shift relative to each
other. This would dramatically increase the cost of printing of what
originally was a cheap disposable magazine.

Alternatively, the greyscale filled pages could be halftoned or digitally
dithered in a fashion similar to the cover. This would allow a single plate
with black ink to be used, keeping printing costs the same, but the result
would look pretty crude. The dots can't be as fine as used on the cover. On
cheap newsprint they'd just bleed together to make the entire page black. With
larger dots, it would end up looking like a fuzzy low resolution image. It
wouldn't be anywhere near as good what can be produced through the judicious
use of screentones and hand drawn shading.


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