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Printmaking
There are a myriad different print media that artists use. What they have in common is that they are an indirect medium where the image is created on a matrix and then transferred to a support, usually paper. This makes it possible to produce more than one print of an image, usually called an edition, which a professional printmaker will number so that you know how many there are, and what impression each one is - e.g. 4/50 means that this is the fourth print from an edition of fifty. AP means artist's proof, made while the artist was still trying out the print.
The two best-known ways of making a print are relief and intaglio. In both the artist removes lines and areas on a block or plate, described more fully below. There are also processes working from a planar surface, relying on chemical processes in the case of lithography, and on stencils in the case of screenprints. In both these cases photographic plates can be produced. And more recently, printmakers have been using computers to generate images.
RELIEF (woodcut, linocut)
INTAGLIO (engraving, drypoint, mezzotint, etching, aquatint)
PLANOGRAPHIC (lithograph)
STENCIL (screenprint)