Despite the “revolutionary” application of astrophotography to the heavens, and to the nebulae in particular, champions of mechanical means of reproduction continued to prefer to make hand drawings directly off photographic plates. This practiced continued well into the twentieth century. Considering that sometimes multiple plates would be used to compose one composited drawing, it seems that hand drawings were used for more than just their clarifying effect. This paper proposes to examine the theoretical and cultural contexts for this practice, especially between 1890-1915.