Digital facial engraving

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Abstract
This contribution introduces the basic techniques for digital facial engraving, which imitates traditional copperplate engraving. Inspired by traditional techniques, we first establish a set of basic rules thanks to which separate engraving layers are built on the top of the original photo. Separate layers are merged according to sim- ple merging rules and according to range shift/scale masks spe- cially introduced for this purpose. We illustrate the introduced technique by a set of black/white and color engravings, showing different features such as engraving-specific image enhancements, mixing different regular engraving lines with mezzotint, irregular perturbations of engraving lines etc. We introduce the notion of engraving style which comprises a set of separate engraving layers together with a set of associated range shift/scale masks. The engraving style helps to port the look and feel of one engraving to another. Once different libraries of pre-defined mappable engrav- ing styles and an appropriate user interface are added to the basic system, producing a decent gravure starting from a simple digital photo will be a matter of seconds. The engraving technique described in this contribution opens new perspectives for digital art, adding unprecedented power and precision to the engraver's work. 1. Rationale Engraving is among the most important traditional graphical tech- niques. It first appeared in the fifteenth century as an illustrative support for budding book-printing, but very quickly became an art in its own right, thanks to its specific expressive power. Actually, four main classes of engraving are used by artists: letterpress or relief printing, intaglio or in-hollow printing, silk screen process and lithography, with several different techniques in each class. The history of printmaking was punctuated by prosperous periods of techniques which later declined for various reasons. Facial engraving is one such example. Extremely popular in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when photography did not exist, this wonderful art became almost unused, due to the extreme technical demands that it made on the engraver. Professional copperplate engravers are rare today, and the cost of true engravings is simply too prohibitive to be used in everyday printing. At the same time, traditional facial engraving has no doubt very specific appeal: its neat, sharp appearance distinguishes it advantageously from pho- tos. To appreciate the graphical impact of engravings it's enough to compare the engraved portraits in the Wall Street Journal with por- traits in other newspapers produced with traditional impersonal screening. Does it mean that this enjoyable art is condemned to disappear for purely economical reasons? We don't think so. We do believe that computer graphics can transform traditional engraving into a digi- tal art. Already in the past, considerable effort has been made to

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