 While there were earlier mechanical printing processes that could imitate the tone and subtle details of a photograph, most notably the Woodburytype, expense and practicality prohibited their being used in mass commercial printing that used relief printing.Previously most newspaper pictures were woodcuts or wood-engravings made from hand-carved blocks of wood that, while they were often copied from photographs, they more resemble hand drawn sketches.Commercial printers wanted a practical way to realistically reproduce photographs onto the printed page, but most common mechanical printing processes can only print areas of ink or leave blank areas on the paper and not a photographic range of tones; only black (or coloured) ink, or nothing.