Stylebook

Most newspapers have there own stylebook. Many use the stylebook prepared jointly by the Associated Press and United Press International. Many large newspapers have their own stylebook, some agreeing in most cases with the press association’s joint stylebook and some different considerably. Book publishers, public relations agencies, the Government printing Office and the armed forces also have stylebook. Most books on news writing, including this one, contain a basic style guide for beginners.

The Joint Stylebook

One of the major influences on news style today is the joint stylebook published by the Associated Press and United Press International. The first joint stylebook was published in 1960, revised in 1968 and completely rewritten for its most recent edition in 1970. Most newspapers follow this lead, either using it as their own stylebook and making locally written copy conform or basing their own stylebook on preferences stated in the joint stylebook. 

The rapidly changing technology of newspaper production has also favored use of the joint stylebook. The widespread use of punched tape which went directly to linecasting machines, and now of computer-to-computer delivery of the news copy, has led to less and less editing of wire copy. Newspapers pretty generally have found it simpler, faster and less expensive to follow wire service style throughout the newspaper.

For the beginner, there is some advantage in the dominance of the joint stylebook. Once you learn style, you will find you can follow it most of the time in most of the places where you will work.

3.4 Why Have A Style?

(i) A Need for Consistency

Stylebooks are devices for enforcing a consistency in writing throughout the newspaper. This does not mean that the newspaper wants every one of its reporters, writers and editors to write in exactly the same way. Far from it. No newspaper wants its pages to sound like the homogenized columns of Time magazine or the Reader’s Digest. But it does want consistency in punctuation, capitalization, abbreviation, spelling, the use of numbers and related matters. The press association’s joint stylebook, for example says:

Use the abbreviation Ave, Blvd. and St. only with a numbered address: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Spell them out and capitalize when part of a formal street name without a number: Pennsylvania Avenue.

Although the Association Press version differs from the United Press International version in typographical dress, occasionally in wording and occasionally giving different examples, the two publications are essentially the same. Examples in this chapter are quoted from the AP version.

This rule is intended to accuse that every news story originating with either press association will abbreviate or spell out theses words in exactly the same way every time. In this and other matters of style, consistency is considered both a virtue and a necessity. Editors want capitalization, punctuation, abbreviations and numbers to appear in the same form on every page of the newspaper all the way from the front page onto the market news on the inside of the back page. They want sports writers and police reporters and columnists to follow the same rules in the use of titles and nicknames. They want local writers of news stories to follow the same spelling rule that press association stories follow.

(ii) Preference and Tradition

Style is basically a preference for one way of doing things over another way when there are two or more acceptable ways of doing it. You could, for example, capitalize the word Street in addresses; or you might not. You could abbreviate it or spell it out. In any case, whatever choice you make would be perfectly clear to your readers. The choice you make is a matter of preference, not a matter of one way being right and the other wrong.

Style, in the sense of providing rules for spelling, punctuation, abbreviation and the use of numbers, is a product of the printing press. It is a visual matter. In the case of punctuation, it provides usual clues to meaning that we would get orally if we were listening to someone talk. In the case of spelling, the various rules reflect that was originally an attempt to indicate how the words sounded.

Style is a large extent tradition. It grew up with the development of printing and with the growth of the printing and publishing industries. The earliest printers and editors sought consistency as they are created a new written form of the English language. There is a long tradition that language ought to be consistent, that there must be true and correct forms and that the right way to use the language must be preserved and enforced. These views do not take into account such well-established phenomena as changes in sound, in meaning and in usage. But attempts at establishing the “correct” forms have persisted. Style falls within this tradition as it attempts to establish certain forms and usages.

(iii) Mechanical Aspects

The most mechanical and least interesting aspects of news style have to do with punctuation, capitalization, abbreviation and the use of numbers. In all these matters, the written language allows for considerable variation so that stylebooks are attempting only to provide some consistency in such matters. Stylebook needn’t bother to remind news writers that the first word in a sentence is capitalize, nor that a sentence ends with a period. But the joint stylebook does provide helpful guides to consistency in less certain area. For example:

Periods always go inside quotation marks.

Capitalization is an area in which there are a few well-understood rules and a lot of leeway for personal choice. For example, we all agree that the initial letters of personal names should be capitalized: John. Williams, Henry Fonda. But the joint stylebook instructs us in some other matters which are not so generally agreed upon:

Capitalize formal titles when they are used immediately before one or more names: Pope Paul, President Washington, Vice President John Jones, Williams Smith, President Abdul Kalam, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, etc.

Capitalize common nouns such as party, river, street and west when they are an integral part of the full name of a person, place or thing: Democratic Party, Mississippi River, Fleet Street, West Virginia.

Abbreviations are anybody’s game, and stylebooks have mush to say about them. For example, the joint stylebook allows the abbreviation U.S as an adjective, but not as noun. U.N for United Nations is treated the same way. Stylebooks set rules for abbreviation of state names, legislative titles, military titles and religious titles.

Numbers are a problem, but the stylebook has one generally accepted rule: Write out numbers one through nine and use Arabic figures for 10 and above. That sounds easy, but when you start using numbers in news copy, you find that there are a good many exceptions. For example:

Use figures for amounts under 10 in dimensions, formulas and speeds: The farm measures 5 miles by 4 miles. The car slowed to 7 miles per hour. The new model gets 4 miles more per gallon.

Spell out casual expressions: A thousands times no! Thanks a million. He walks a quarter of a mile.

These examples turn the old one-through-nine rule upside down. Yet you will find that the rules for the use of numbers are fairly simple and, because we use so many numbers in news stories, not too difficult to master. Again, when in doubt refer to the stylebook.

Many rules found in stylebook are there to make news stories easier to read and understand. Once learned, the more frequently used style rules make it easier to write too, for they provide formulas for handling routine information. Knowing style for handling names, titles, ages and addresses, for example, makes it easier to organize facts in an understandable way. Consistency in these matters helps the reader, too.

News style is gradually eliminating unnecessary punctuation as a means of keeping sentences uncluttered and flowing smoothly. You will find that most newspapers stylebooks ask you to eliminate the comma before and and or a series, thus:

He saluted the red, white and blue.

He asked for apples, pears and oranges.

The apostrophe is also done away with where meaning is clear. The joint stylebook rule for plurals of figures says:

Add s: the custom began in the 1920s. Temperatures will be in the low 20s. The airline has two 727s. There are five size 7s.

News style calls for the use of a.m. or p.m. with all references to clock time. Readers should not be confused about when things happened or will happen.

News style is also very particular about the use of names, and while there are some exceptions, the basic rule is to identify people by their first name, middle, initial and last name. Where street addresses are used after a person’s name and age, news style requires the insertion of the word of between the age and the address, thus:

John C. Smith, 37, of 241 S. Cedar St.

The word ‘of’ in this case is a safety precaution against getting the numbers in the age and the address mixed up. Who lives at 37241 S. Cedar? It might not be Mr. Smith, and that person might not like to be associated with the other address.

The Chicago Tribune stylebook requires writer to designate street addresses precisely:

Use addresses for Chicago and all suburbs listed in the Chicago suburban phone books. Designate N., S., E., or W on all Chicago streets and indicate whether street is a road, street, avenue, highway, etc unless, like Broadway, it has no such designation.

In the interest of readability and clarity, stylebook frequently urges news writers to use short sentences and to avoid the kind of punctuation that encourages long sentences. The Detroit News stylebook warns:

Semicolons should be used sparingly in news writing. When semicolons might be used in more formal writing, periods usually are better in a news story.

As you become familiar with the contents of the stylebook, you will find many rules and suggestions that will make it easier for you to put your story together and will also make your story easier to read and understand. Rules about style help structure and organize news writing. Although this take away some of your freedom of choice, it does speed up production. You don’t have to stop whatever a decision is called for; the decisions have already been made for you. Once the rules are learned and become second nature, the copy rolls out much faster.

(iv) Style and Usage

In addition to the more mechanical matters like punctuation, stylebook tends to get into the meaning and uses of words and phrases. There are some good reasons for this, although reason and logic do not account for all the rules of usage enforced by stylebook. In the first place, the newspaper is concerned with the clear, accurate and truthful presentation of information so that precise meanings of words are important. Do you mean imply or infer? Are you sure it is ‘convince’ or should it be ‘persuade’? Second, the newspaper is seeking to present the news in readable, informal and understandable prose.  There has to be a balance between the informal, slangy, irrelevant popular speech and the staff, formal and traditional written language of literature or scholarship. Finally, editors have quite a conservative streak, and many resist any changes in the language and hold onto old words and old usages whether they make sense or not.

Precision in the use of words is important if our readers are to understand us. News writing must be so accurate that readers get the same meaning out of a story that we put into it. Hence, suggestions such as the following from the joint stylebook:

CLOTURE Not closure, for the parliamentary procedure for closing debate.

Whenever practical, use a phrase such as closing debate or ending debate instead of the technical term.

The Washington Post Deskbook in Style cautions Post writers:

Verbal means relate to words, either written or spoken, rather than to action. It is erroneously used to contrast with written; the correct expression of contrast is oral versus written.

The New York Times Stylebook caution:

ELECTRICAL, ELECTRONIC. The words should not be used interchangeably.

Popular speech, of course, is the real source of the written language , and journalism has always drawn on the everyday language of the street, the police station, the theater, sports, politics- and everything else- to enrich its language.

Some words may still be banned by stylebook because they are too slangy, too undignified, but there has been a general easing up on slang and popular speech in the past few years. Stylebook that five years ago banned ‘OK’ and ‘cop’ as slang now don’t even mention these words.

Many of the prohibitions in stylebooks, however, are due to tradition and conservatism, even of prejudice, in language, and some are due to a refusal to accept the fact that occurs is an ever-changing language. Many stylebooks object to coining new verbs from existing nouns: for example, shotgunned to death, suicided, hosted a party authorized a book. But this objection is grammatical nonsense, since speakers of English have been creating useful verbs in this way since the ninth century. It is true that some newly coined verbs are awkward, some are not as familiar as older words or phrases and some won’t last. However, others will survive because they meet the needs of our times. Newspapers are full of such words. Nevertheless, stylebooks continue to ban some of them from newspaper columns, and we have to follow the stylebook.

Many stylebooks ban the use of ‘contact’ and ‘finalize’ and various verb coinages such as guested, premiered, debuted and readied. Other prohibitions are traditional but difficult to explain logically.

The use of ‘feel’ for ‘believe’; ‘following’ as a preposition in the sense of ‘after’; the use of ‘sustained’ in the phrase ‘he sustained injuries’; ‘lady’ for ‘woman’; the ‘phrase’ given a ‘sentence’; ‘over’ for ‘more than’; ‘Xmas’ an abbreviation for ‘Christmas’.

Spelling is a problem for the stylebook since there are sometimes two acceptable spellings for a word, subpoena and subpena, for example, and consistency within a publication demands that one spelling be selected as the preferred usage. Most stylebooks include a list of preferred spellings, which staff members must follow. Many stylebooks also include lists of frequently misspelled words and words similar form or meaning that is commonly confused. The joint stylebook has many such entries and the Basic Guide to News Style in this book includes a section on spelling and usage.

(v)  Style and Policy

Stylebooks generally contain some rules or guidelines to the newspaper’s policy on such matters as courtesy titles, racial designations, sexual stereotyping, the use of epithetics, vulgarities and obscenities and the use of legal, technical or scientific terminology.

The joint stylebook does into considerable detail on courtesy titles. In the past few years there have been changes in community attributes towards the ruse of courtesy titles Mr., Miss, Mrs. Ms. especially with women’s names, and the recent editors of the joint stylebook had to be much more detailed than was previously necessary.

Most stylebooks ban racial designations unless they are clearly relevant to the news story.

Sexual stereotyping is now a matter requiring policy decisions, so most stylebooks deal with the subject. The joint stylebook says, for example:

Women should receive the same treatment as men in all areas of coverage. Physical descriptions, sexiest references, demeaning stereotypes and condescending phrases should not be used.

The Washington Post deskbook has an excellent chapter titled “Taste and Sensibilities,” which deals with sexual stereotyping, courtesy titles and other matters.

The use of words or phrases that may be offensive to some readers are a problem. Very few words or phrases are banned outright today, although some newspapers are still a little squeamish. Rape, for example, long left to be too strong a word to appear in a family newspaper, is now acceptable, and stylebook may prefer ‘rape’ to such circumstances as ‘statutory offense’ or ‘sexual assault’.

Stylebooks generally today are explicit about the use of previously unmentionable to tabooed words and phrases. Newspapers, with the exception of a few metropolitan or regional giants, are extremely local, and they are sensitive to and reflect community standards and attitudes. Words that many people use and most people know are simply not used in print. The joint stylebook, sensitive to community attitudes, warns about obscenities:

Do not use in stories unless there are part of direct quotations and there is a compelling reason for them.

Wire service copy containing obscenities, profanities or vulgarities must be flagged thus:

Editors: Language in 4^th graf may be offensive to some readers.

The Washington Post also takes a consecutive stand on questionable language and treats the subject at same length in its deskbook. That deskbook says:

Although profanity and obscenity have become much more widely used in recent years than heretofore, both publicly and in mixed company, their use in a family newspaper can seldom be justified.

The deskbook suggests that the test for use of profanity or obscenities should be ‘why use it?’ Rather than ‘why not use it?’

Behind Style

Long tradition and acceptable practices in the newsroom provide some of the authority for the rules given in the stylebook. The authority of tradition and custom is pretty shaky, especially when you consider that many arbitrary rules in stylebooks are nothing more than the codification of usages editors learned years ago when they were beginners. Fortunately, change is in the air, and stylebooks are much more relaxed about language than they were even a few years ago. Rules are less prescriptive, more descriptive of actual usage. Nevertheless, stylebooks still contain old biases; they must tolerate some of the idiosyncrasies of editors.

Generally, however, there are both authority and scholarship behind stylebook rules. The joint stylebook bases its spellings and definitions on Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, a well-edited standard and up-to-date dictionary. Second or back-up reference is Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, which is, despite complaints by some editors about its permissiveness, the standard dictionary. The Chicago Tribune stylebook relies on Webster’s Third as its primary reference. The Washington Post deskbook cities the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language in its references on good writing and correct usage. Military titles and designations are based on official usage of the armed forces, and religious titles and designations are based on careful consultation with the various churches and religious sects. The use of geographic names in the joint stylebook is based on Webster’s New World and the Columbia Lipppinott Gazetteer of the world.

Only a handful of newspapers compile their own stylebooks. Generally the largest ones such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Detroit News, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and the Milwaukee Journal and similarly in India all major national newspapers have their own style book. These newspapers produce so much of their own copy that it is just as easy to edit wire service stories to conform to their own style as to use it the other way around. Smaller papers generally find it easier to follow the joint stylebook and edit local copy to conform.

The Basic Guide to News Style

This text includes what might be called a basic stylebook. It contains many statements on style and newsroom practice that are too basic and well understood to be included in the joint stylebook or in most newspaper stylebooks. It omits quite a lot that you will find in other stylebooks, especially typographical matters that are not of immediate interest to the beginning news writer. Since most beginning news writers are working in college classroom, the basic stylebook covers a number of points that are of greater interest on college campuses than elsewhere – for example, the treatment of academic titles, degree and rank. As far as possible, this stylebook conforms to the preferences of the press association’s stylebook either specially or orally analogy.

News Style and Personal Style

News style as we have just described it deals with mechanical matters, with consistency; it smacks of history and tradition; it presents some guidelines for clear and accurate writing, and it establishes some matters of official policy. News style offers some useful and workable guidelines for organizing and writing news stories, but it should not inhibit you from developing your own style of writing. You can obey your office stylebook and still develop your own style; your own way of saying things, for personal style is quite another thing. Here is an example of personal style. The writer’s own choice of words, resulted in this lead from the Detroit Free Press:

A 23 years old Detroit man, clad only in raindrops, tried to climb Scott Fountain on Belle Isle Sunday.

Nude or naked might have been the obvious way to describe this Detroit man. Some writers might have said unclothed. But the writer of this lead, out of innate genius, found a different way of saying something quite ordinary.

Your personal style will have to develop over a period of time, and it will probably not start to grow until you have mastered the arbitrary and structured aspects of news style and the basic story structures. Once you feel comfortable with the basic matters of news writing, you will begin to reach out, to be more creative, to develop a style and approach to writing that is your own.

This personal style will not be a matter of punctuation, capitalization and abbreviation. It will be a matter of your choice of words, of the range of your vocabulary, of your ability to coin figures of speech, of your ear for dialect, colorful words and apt expressions. It will be a matter of sentence length and the rhythm of your prose, of the clarity of your thinking and the logical presentation of your ideas. This style will not come out of an office stylebook- it will come out of you. It will not be a matter of rules, but a matter of feeling, accept the stylebook for what it is, master it and go on to learn to write in your own style.

Editing Pictures and Info graphics

The term visual journalist has assumed increased importance for both print and online publications at the dawn of the 21^st century. The concept of repackaging the news to attract new readers has sparked a flurry of newspaper and magazine redesign projects and ongoing discussion about Web page design. Generally, redesigns, like Web pages, call for shorter stories and increased use of visual elements to help produce reader-friendly products. Journalists skillful at communicating information concisely and clearly, including graphic specialists and photojournalists, have gained enhanced status at their publications.

Better visuals through teamwork

Marty Petty, executive vice president for The St. Petersburg Times and former publisher of the Hartford Courant, speaking at an American Press Institute seminar, said the visual journalist of the future will be a hybrid reporter-editor-artist:

The artists producing news graphics must also strengthen their journalistic skills. Newspapers will shift responsibility for the basic one-column and two-column chart, graph or map to the layout desks, copy editors and may be reporters and origination editors. We will rely on them to have advanced computer skills, solid reporting and research skills and analytical skills as well as possibly a specialization in illustration…..

  The graphics editor, art director and photo editor will play much more active roles in planning the news sections, news packages and special sections. Technology will make the execution of their traditional tasks simple and fast, and increase the number of graphics on our pages. Again, solid journalistic skills will be a first priority for them as well as a complete understanding of the production process. They will need to know how to build data for expanded news packages and graphics.

Visual journalists as the hybrid reporters-editors-artists whom Petty envisioned several years ago have arrived and thy work not only at newspapers but at the entire array of publications, including Web sites. As noted earlier in this book, management strategy today increasingly emphasizes a team approach that involves workers at every stage of product development, whether the final products are automobiles, printed materials or Web sites. Now, instead of the old Life magazine procedure in which photographers had absolutely no control over their pictures after shooting them, photographers today often work closely with reporters, writers, editors and page designers throughout the process: generating story ideas, planning the most effective methods for gathering information and combining text and visuals to package information clearly and concisely.

When selecting pictures for publication, copy editors should follow the advice that Rob Heller, a design consultant and photography teacher, suggests for photographers. He tells them to give special attention to these elements:

Ø           Point of view. Always look for a more interesting angle from which to take the photograph. High or low angles can present the world in a unique way.

Ø           Subject contrast. Make sure that the subject stands out from the background. Dark against light or light against dark allows the viewer to distinguish the important parts of the photographs.

Ø           Framing. Examine all parts of the frame very carefully as you look through the viewfinder. This is the time to look for distracting elements such as a telephone pole coming out of a subject’s head.

Ø           Lighting. The lighting should enhance the photograph, not detract from it. Stay away from flat, frontal lighting. Look for more interesting light from the side or back of the subject.

Ø           Camera-to-subject distance. An overall or long shot establishes the location of an event. A medium shot describes the action. A close-up examines the details of a situation. Shoot all three to give coverage as complete as possible.

Ø           Decisive moments. Make sure to always tell the story of an event or news situation. Try to capture the decisive moment, the instant when all the aforementioned elements come together to form a powerful photograph.

The procedures for showing photographs to editors vary from publication to publication. Some photographers make contact prints, proofs of the negatives that are the same size as the negatives themselves (see Figure 10-1). Although small, they are easily inspected with a linen tester or loupe, a small 8- or 10-power magnifying glass. Editors work from contact prints to select the photographs to be printed. The prints are usually enlarged to 8 by 10 inches, although some economy-minded publications use 5-by-7-inch prints. At other publications, the photographer may skip the contact prints and make 8 x 10 or 5 x 7 prints of the best photographs. Increasingly, digital photography is replacing film and photographic prints on paper. In a digital environment, editors display multiple small pictures on their computer screens, select those to be published and then electronically crop and size them (see Figure 10-2).

  Editors and photographers use the primary goals of photojournalism in making picture selections:

§           To communicate effectively, as either stand-alone art or accompaniment to a story

§           To attract reader’s attention and provide a point of entry to the page

§           To enhance the overall appearance of the page

Space is a valuable commodity, so editors must choose wisely in allocating that space. Will a photograph best accomplish the goals within limited space, or should an informational graphic be used? Or perhaps a sidebar to accompany the main story?

Criteria that make a story newsworthy also apply to picture selection:

Ø             Impact. Pictures that illustrate events and situations with an impact on many people are more likely to be published than pictures with limited scope.

Ø             Unusualness. Shots of an unusual happening or pictures taken from unusual angles or that use different approaches to routine events win favor with editors.

Ø             Prominence. Readers like to see photographs of famous and infamous people.

Ø             Action. Modern cameras, with fast shutter speeds and high-speed film, allow photographers to freeze action. Editors may be compelled to use an occasional “grip and grin” or lineup photo, especially in small-town papers, but such trite pictures are largely a relic.

Ø             Proximity. People want to see pictures of their friends and neighbors, of people in their own community. Other factors being equal, editors give the nod to local photographs over wire photos.

Ø             Conflict. Just as conflict makes an event or situation worth writing about, it also adds to the value of photographs. But editors must guard against selecting a conflict-filled photo that distorts an event. It would be poor news judgment, for example, to publish a photo of a minor fight that was an isolated incident at an otherwise peaceful event.

Ø             Timeliness. In judging the timeliness of photographic coverage, editors must consider whether readers are still interested in something that happened last week or even just this morning. Television also influences newspaper photo selection, because editors seek to publish pictures different from those seen on television.

Ø             Technical quality. A blurry, out-of-focus print rarely attracts a second look from photo editors – unless its news value vastly outweighs its poor quality. Pictures of the first moon landing and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy are among the rare examples of news value overcoming poor technical quality.

Preparing photographs for publication

Once the responsible editor has selected photos and other illustrations, the art must be cropped, sized and scaled for the production department. Depending on the size and staff organization of a publication, the copy desk or a separate layout department may perform these tasks.

Handling photographs

When working with prints rather than digital images, everyone who handles photographs and other artwork should do so with care. Fingerprints and smudge marks may show up when the art is published, so keep it clean. Never cut a picture to eliminate unwanted parts. Instead, use a wax or soft-lead pencil to mark, with both horizontal and vertical lines, the part of the photograph that should be reproduced. These crop marks, as they are called, can be erased and changed if necessary.

  Never write on the face of a photograph. Place crop marks in the margins of the photo, and write instructions to the production department on the back of the picture or on an instruction tag attached to the picture. To write on the back of a picture, use a grease pencil or soft-lead pencil. A ball point pen or hard-lead pencil may crack the glossy face of the photograph or show through.

Cropping

To crop a picture is to decide how much or what part of a print should be published. Editors crop to eliminate busy backgrounds of people who are superfluous to the photo’s theme and of other elements that distract from the picture’s center of interest.

  Begin cropping by covering parts of the photo that contain no information or irrelevant information. What remains will have greater impact if reproduced at an adequate size. To help decide how the picture should be cropped, editors often frame the picture with a rectangle formed between extended thumbs and forefingers, with strips of paper or with “cropping angles” designed for this purpose.

Keep in mind the following guidelines when cropping photographs:

§           Avoid cropping pictures in fancy or irregular shapes unless there is an unusual and compelling reason.

§           For head shots, most editors prefer to leave some space on the side that the subject is facing. At a few newspapers and magazines, however, all head shots – also called mug shots – are cropped extremely tightly, so that ears and sometimes the top of the subject’s head are trimmed.

§           For an action picture – for example, a racing boat or a runner – leave space in front of the thrust of the action.

§           Body parts can be cropped, but avoid amputating at joints such as ankles, knees, wrists or elbows.

§           Remain sensitive to the mood or atmosphere captured in the photograph. Avoid tight cropping if background elements help tell the story.

§           Consider that extreme enlargements will reduce picture quality. If the layout calls for a large photo, avoid cropping and enlarging just a small portion of the original. Select a different picture for that particular layout.

Scaling

After a photo is cropped for its greatest impact, the next step is to scale it to fit the desired page layout. Other terms for scaling are proportioning and sizing. Few publications print photographs or draw artwork “to size”, meaning the exact size that they will appear in the finished publication. Deadline considerations preclude a return to the darkroom to print photographs to size after page layouts are completed; in fact, layouts for the latest news and sports pages often are finished only minutes before press time. Thus, publications that sill work with film and hard-copy prints rather than digital images generally use 8 x 10 or 5 x 7 glossy prints, and scale them for enlargement or reduction, which is called the reproduction size.

  Proportion is the key concept in enlarging or reducing photographs. A vertical picture cannot fit a horizontal space on the layout, unless, of course, the picture can be cropped to make it horizontal. In an ideal world, the person who does the page layout has a variety of excellent photographs to select from and, knowing that the desired shape is available, can design an attractive page.

  But this isn’t an ideal world. Often the layout editor has no choice about the shape of the photographs and must plan the layout accordingly. The layout editor can choose, however, to enlarge or reduce the photos.

Editors can figure the reproduction size while maintaining proportionality in one of four ways:

§           Compute it with a mathematical formula

§           Use a mechanical scaling device, such as a proportioning wheel or slide ruler.

§           Apply the diagonal-line method.

§           Work from digital images with computer software like Adobe Photoshop, PageMaker or QuarkXPress

A ruler, preferably one calibrated in picas, is needed for the first three methods.

  Regardless of the method used, remember to work with the dimensions of the photograph or other artwork as cropped. If part of an 8 x 10 photo has been cropped, then the part of the picture that has been eliminated is not used in figuring the new size. After cropping, when we speak of the original or present size, we mean the cropped size, the size within the crop marks.

Ø           Formula method. The formula method is simple and requires no special tools other than a ruler. The three known dimensions (the width and depth of the original photo and one dimension of the reproduction size) are plugged into this formula:

This formula can be applied to any unit of measurement: inches, picas, feet and

so on.

  In addition to the reproduction dimensions, the production department must know the percentage of reduction or enlargement. This figure should be written on the back of the picture or on an instruction tag attached to the photo. To determine the percentage of reduction or enlargement use this formula:

 When computing the percentage, mentally check to be sure that the percentage is “going in the right direction.” If the published art is to be smaller than the original art, the percentage should be less than 100 percent. If the original is to be enlarged in the published version, the percentage should be more than 100 percent.

  Percentage errors occur if the formula is inverted. Comparing depth and width instead of the same dimensions (depth with depth or width with width) will also produce an incorrect percentage of reproduction. Measuring in picas rather than inches eliminates calculating with fractions. Although the figures for dimensions in picas will be larger than when calculating in inches, multiplying and dividing whole numbers is easier than working with fractions with different denominators. It is permissible to round off dimensions to the nearest one-half pica.

  People who are inexperienced at scaling photographs sometimes become confused when their task is reversed and they start with the reproduction size. This reversal occurs when the layout is completed before the art is scaled. Assuming that the layout editor did not lay out a horizontal space for a vertical picture that can’t be suitably cropped, this assignment should pose no difficulty.

  The first step is to be determine one original dimension of the artwork. Measure the dimension that is least flexible (the dimension that cannot be cropped or can b e cropped the least). Now you have three dimensions: reproduction width, reproduction depth, and either original depth or original width.

  Plug these known dimensions into the formula. The fourth dimension can be figured readily. Once you have the fourth dimension, do not forget to crop the original photograph accordingly.

Ø           Proportioning wheel. A scaling device such as a proportioning wheel uses the

same principle as the formula method. But the proportioning wheel is more commonly used, because it eliminates the need to multiply and divide. Several companies produce proportioning wheels, most with directions for their use printed on the wheel itself.

  The wheel consists of two circular pieces of cardboard or plastic, one slightly smaller than the other. The pieces are attached in the center to allow them to revolve. Calibrations, which can represent any unit of measurement, are printed on the rim of each circle. In addition, a cutout area near the center of the wheel indicates the percentage of original size.

  To operate the wheel, an editor first crops the artwork and measures the dimensions within the crop marks. Then the known reproduction dimension, usually the width, is located on the outer circle of the wheel and lined up with its counterpart dimension of the original photo, as cropped, on the inner circle. In that alignment, the two measurements of the other dimension, usually the depth, align – original dimension on the inner circle, reproduction dimension on the outer circle. An arrow in the window of the wheel points to the percentage of reduction or enlargement

Ø           Diagonal-line method. The diagonal-line method is yet another way to scale

photograph. Place a sheet of clear plastic or a sheet of onion-skin paper over the photograph. Place this overlay with its edge aligned with the vertical crop marks on the left side of the photograph. Draw a diagonal line from the top left of the cropped photo to the bottom right, again at the crop mark. The vertical and horizontal dimensions of any right angle intersecting on the diagonal will be in proportion to the original photograph.

Some editors prefer this method because it allows them to keep the art in view throughout the process. However, the formula method and the proportioning wheel method are more popular and less cumbersome. If you decide to use the diagonal-line method, it is worth investing in a commercial plastic overlay instead of using onion-skin paper. The commercial overlays have inches or picas marked along both the vertical and horizontal axes and come with a diagonal piece or a string attached. At the upper left corner that can be rotated to proper position. For newspaper use, some commercial overlays are ruled in column widths.

Source: Internet