the act of manipulating a photograph so as to produce fewer tones and therefore create greater contrast
posterization in American English
(ˌpoustərəˈzeiʃən)
noun Printing
1.
a process for producing a posterlike, high-contrast color reproduction from continuous-tone art by using separation negatives of various densities
2. Photography
a printing process in which all tone values of a negative are reduced to a few and the tonal separation negatives produced are printed at different exposure levels on a high-contrast film so that a set of flat tones results
Word origin
[1945–50; poster1 + -ization]This word is first recorded in the period 1945–50. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: RNA, fail-safe, poison pill, spin-off, synchronized swimming-ization is used to form nouns from verbs ending in -ize (organization). Other words that use the affix -ization include: arborization, cephalization, racemization, sterilization, vaporization