Editing Mezzotint (section)

==Detailed technique==
Plates can be mechanically roughened; one way is to rub fine metal filings over the surface with a piece of glass; the finer the filings, the smaller the grain of the surface. Special roughening tools called 'rockers' have been in use since at least the eighteenth century. The method commonly in use today is to use a steel rocker approximately five inches wide, which has between 45 and 120 teeth per inch on the face of a blade in the shape of a shallow arc, with a wooden handle projecting upwards in a T-shape. Rocked steadily from side to side at the correct angle, the rocker will proceed forward creating burrs in the surface of the [[copper]]. The plate is then moved – either rotated by a set number of degrees or through 90 degrees according to preference – and then rocked in another pass. This is repeated until the plate is roughened evenly and will print a completely solid tone of black.<ref>Gascoigne, section 16a; Griffiths (1996b), 83–84, for detailed contemporary instructions see the National Portrait Gallery link below.</ref>

<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px">
File:Mezzotint tools 1986.jpg| A mezzotint of mezzotint tools. [[Shirley_Jones_(artist)|Shirley Jones]], ''A Dark Side of the Sun'' (1986)
File:Mezzaluna berceau.jpg|Two sizes of rocker
File:Mezzotintoführung.jpg|Using the rocker
File:Muscles of the sole of the foot. Colour mezzotint by A. E. G Wellcome V0007806.jpg|Muscles of the sole of the foot, Colour mezzotint by A.E. Gautier d'Agoty (son of [[Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty]]), 1773
File:Peter Ilsted - Sunshine Falling on a Door.jpg|''Sunshine V'', [[Peter Ilsted]]
</gallery>