Signs for labour-value in printed pictures after the photomechanical revolution: mainstream changes and extreme cases around 1960

Until the early years of the 20C, it mattered to consumers, including consumers of journals, how printed pictures had been made. Their production history, including the amount of skilled labour that had gone into their making, affected how consumers regarded them. This understanding of the value of a printed picture was being eclipsed by the end of the 19C as a competing paradigm, based on the transvaluation of origination and the devaluation of mediation, emerged. The article discusses the changing ways that labour was understood to add value to printed pictures at a critical moment of this paradigm shift.