Litho Printing: The History and Future of Photographic Prints
litho printing is a printing process that involves a printing cylinder, blanket cylinder, and impression cylinder.
– Stone lithography printing (Alois Senefelder using a stone printing plate in 1796)
– collotype printing (direct printing process, Alphonse-Louis Poitevin in 1856),
– offset printing (indirect printing process),
– di-litho (direct printing process with offset printing plate).
Alois Senefelder invented lithography.
In 1796, Senefelder struggled to afford the high cost of printing his plays.
He developed a printing method to make a cost-effective solution that drew an image directly onto a smooth, flat stone surface using a special ink called a "lithographic crayon."
Collotype - (1856-57) can be traced to A.L Poitevin. Continuous tones can be reproduced without screening.
Poitevin developed "heliogravure," a method using a photolithographic process.
Offset printing is a process by which an image is transferred (or 'offset') from a plate to a rubber blanket and then dispensed onto the printing substrate.
Di litho printing is a printing process that involves creating a print by transferring ink from a printing plate to a substrate, such as paper or cardboard.