Xerography

Applied to animation by Ub Iwerks, the electrostatic copying technique called xerography allowed the drawings to be copied directly onto the cels, leaving only the coloring to the inkers. This saved time and money, and it also made it possible to put in more details and to control the size of the xeroxed objects and characters (this replaced the little known, and seldom used, photographic lines technique at Disney, used to reduce the size of animation when needed). At first it resulted in a more sketchy look, but the method was improved later. Instead of using black lines only, cels with lines in different colors were also possible, using colored toner powder.

The xerographic method was first used by Disney in the short film Goliath II, while the first feature using this process was One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). The graphic style of this film was strongly influenced by the process. Some hand inking was still used together with xerography in this and subsequent films when distinct colored lines were needed. Later, colored toners became available, and several distinct line colors could be used, even simultaneously. For instance, in The Rescuers the characters outlines are gray. White and blue toners were used for special effects, such as snow and water.