The
Ben-Day dots printing process, named after
illustrator and printer
Benjamin Henry Day, Jr., (son of 19th Century publisher
Benjamin Henry Day) is a technique dating from 1879. Depending on the effect, color and
optical illusion needed, small colored dots are closely spaced, widely spaced or overlapping.
Magenta dots, for example, are widely spaced to create pink. Pulp
comic books of the 1950s and 1960s used Ben-Day dots in the four process colors (
cyan, magenta, yellow and black) to inexpensively create
shading and
secondary colors such as green, purple, orange and flesh tones.