Colour And Colour Printing As Applied To Lithography

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

'Practical Lithography' is a guide to practicing lithography, which is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German author and actor Alois Senefelder and was initially used mostly for musical scores and maps. Lithography can be used to print text or images onto paper or other suitable material. A lithograph is something printed by lithography, but this term is only used for fine art prints and some other, mostly older, types of printed matter, not for those made by modern commercial lithography.

"As the printing industry accelerates its transition from an analog to digital environment, it seems especially appropriate to celebrate the achievements of its color printing pioneers, writes David Pankow, Curator of the RIT Melbert B. Cary, Jr. Graphic Arts Collection. The book is intended to make the reader familiar with the history and identification characteristics of twenty-one historic printing processes. Each informative process description is illustrated by vibrant color reproductions, the majority of which were photographed from rare books held at the Cary Collection at Rochester Institute of Technology.