Photoetching

SO much more complicated to make the plate than I anticipated! I did some normal etching a few years ago in school and all that involved was putting the ground on the plate, scratching in your image, etching it into the plate in the acid bath then grab your ink and you're good to go.. This was hard to keep up with. It involved photosensitive film, exposing it to a dot screen and timing the erosion exactly right so as not to bubble the film.

I only managed to do a few test prints but they turned out pretty well!

With photoetching you have two options:-

• print from the tonal relief of the photographic film on the etching plate, leaving the actual copper plate untouched and reusable
• put the plate in a further acid bath and actually etch your photo directly into the plate to make a more permanent printing tool

I chose the first option as it's quicker and easier since I'm only experimenting, but if I were to use this technique again I'd much prefer to permanently engrave the image into the plate. It provides a much more reliable print and is a much more versatile tool.