{{refimprove, date=November 2018
Screenless lithography is a
reprographic
Reprography (a portmanteau of ''reproduction'' and ''photography'') is the reproduction of graphics through mechanical or electrical means, such as photography or xerography. Reprography is commonly used in catalogs and archives, as well as in th ...
dating to 1855, when the French chemist and civil engineer
Alphonse Poitevin Alphonse may refer to:
* Alphonse (given name)
* Alphonse (surname)
* Alphonse Atoll, one of two atolls in the Seychelles' Alphonse Group
See also
*Alphons
*Alfonso (disambiguation)
{{dab ...
discovered the light–sensitive properties of bichromated gelatin and invented both the
photolithography
In integrated circuit manufacturing, photolithography or optical lithography is a general term used for techniques that use light to produce minutely patterned thin films of suitable materials over a substrate, such as a silicon wafer, to protect ...
and
collotype
Collotype is a gelatin-based photographic printing process invented by Alphonse Poitevin in 1855 to print images in a wide variety of tones without the need for halftone screens. The majority of collotypes were produced between the 1870s and ...
in the 1880s, screenless lithography was abandoned. Until the end of World War II, two kinds of photomechanically made plates were used in lithography: albumin plates and deep-etch plates. Presensitized plates appeared in the 1950s, and wipe–on plates appeared in the 1960s.
By the mid-1960s research on screenless lithography had successfully developed in Europe to the stage where continuous-tone plates could be manufactured for use with positive film images. Researchers discovered that under certain conditions the combination of fine plate grain and the newly developed plate coatings produced a plate capable of holding nearly all of the tones from a continuous-tone positive. Commercial use of this plate has not flourished; today it is still in limited use, primarily because the continuous–tone printing plate technology is expensive and necessitates stringent quality control.
Since the late 1960s artists and printers have been experimenting with these new plates, using photomechanical film and handmade positives made from thin translucent or transparent plastic sheets and a variety of drawing and painting materials. Screenless lithography has been incorrectly referred to as diazo plate lithography and
Mylar
BoPET (biaxially-oriented polyethylene terephthalate) is a polyester film made from stretched polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and is used for its high tensile strength, chemical and dimensional stability, transparency, reflectivity, gas and aro ...