Abstract: A method for the electro-optical reproduction of half-tone pictures in which the picture is subdivided into surface elements having covering spots therein corresponding to a tone value scale, wherein electronic recording data is produced from the surface elements and is stored, wherein by means of electrooptical scanning of a picture signals are obtained and are used to call up the recording data for the reproduction of the picture, the improvement resides in that several raster screens on the picture are formed and the meshes and the angle of rotation of such raster screens are selected in such a manner that an orthogonally oriented parcel screen having a congruent screen structure is obtained, and subdividing the parcels into smaller orthogonally oriented surface elements and obtaining recording data from such surface elements.