photogravure

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The process of printing from an intaglio plate, etched according to a photographic image.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The art of producing on metal, by an application of the action of light on a sensitized surface, often supplemented by etching, an incised engraved plate for printing. There are several processes by which this may be accomplished. According to the Niepce process, which is suitable for the reproduction of line-engravings, a copperplate is coated with bitumen and is then exposed to light beneath a negative. The resulting print is brought out with olive-oil and turpentine, or with oil of spike, which dissolves the parts acted on by light and acts little on the rest, and the lines remain as bare copper. The plate is then etched. In the Fox-Talbot process the gelatin print is transferred to copper which has had a grain given to it by sprinkling the surface with powdered resin and then warming it. (See aquatint.) The plate is then etched with ferric acid, which renders the opaque portions of the gelatin film insoluble and impermeable. The acid should be weak and kept in motion during the biting, until the uncovered parts have been sufficiently attacked. To increase the regularity of the erosion, the plate should first be immersed in a weak solution of copper sulphate. In the Woodbury process, which resembles the Goupil process, a gelatin picture in relief is applied under pressure upon a plate of soft metal, and is repeated on the metal in relief and depression. The mold thus formed is filled with pig-mented gelatin, over which a sheet of paper which is to receive the picture is placed, and subjected to a level pressure in order to force out the superfluous gelatin. The depressed parts, which represent the dark parts of the picture, retain the most gelatin, and when the paper is lifted it raises the gelatin from the mold in such a manner that it forms a picture in low relief. In order to obtain a grained surface which will hold printing-ink, pounded glass may be mixed with the gelatin.
2. To produce in photogravure.
3. n. A print taken from a photograph upon copper, etched with acid, and produced by the copperplate process.

Wiktionary

1. n. uncountable An intaglio process for printing photographic reproductions in newspapers and books.
2. n. countable A print so made.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A photoengraving; also, the process by which such a picture is produced.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. printing from an intaglio plate prepared by photographic methods
2. n. an intaglio print produced by gravure
3. n. using photography to produce a plate for printing