Photocomposition (Intertype et. al., start 1950-60, end 1975-85)
The first photocomposition devices
(the French ``Photon'' and Intertype's
Fotosetter) made their debuts as
early as 1944, but didn't really catch
on until the early 1950s. Typeface
masters for photocomposition are on
film; the characters are projected onto
photo-sensitive paper. Lenses are
used to adjust the size of the image,
scaling the type to the desired size.
In some senses this technology was an
``improvement,'' allowing new freedoms, such as overlapping characters. However, it also pretty much eliminated optical scaling (see 2.2, above), because in the rush to convert fonts to the new format, usually only one design was used, which was directly scaled to the desired size.
'Cold' composition, film-based systems provided typesetting that was easily imaged onto lithographic printing plates, but just like its hot-metal predecessors, the process was still carried out by keyboard operators. Film composition therefore had advantages of speed, reduced size of equipment, and the elimination of casting, but also other disadvantages. For instance, the operators were almost blind to what their keystroke commands were producing, word and letter-spacing decisions, once made by a (human) compositor, were often left to the mechanical determinations of the machine; the need for precise specifications early on in the process was increased because adjustments could not be made at a later stage, as hitherto could be done with metal type; and control over typographic appearance during the composition process became more abstracted from the actual stuff of the end result. Due to this effect, although such devices made typesetting appear to be an easier, more flexible technology, the need for experienced typographers actually increased. Not until around the 1970s with the emergence of the computer and the video display terminal did a semblance of more direct visual feedback make a return. We must also not forget the social and political impact of these changes in the technology and techniques of production, most of these alterations meant redundancy for sectors of workers and shifts in the class patterns of control over each of the segmented processes.
