A pinback button, often made of tin, that has its design painted or printed directly on the metal. Lithos are inexpensive for button manufacturers to make. They typically have less intricate designs, and they do scratch easily. By consensus in the button hobby, lithos may contain a few small nicks and scratches and still be considered to be in excellent condition.
Lithographic Printing. A high quality printing method.
Print process by which specific areas of a printing plate are chemically treated for the image areas to take ink and the non-image areas to take water. Capable of very fine detail and photographic-quality reproduction. Abbreviation for Magenta in the four-colour printing process.
A printing process using a plate that has been chemically treated so that the image to be printed is receptive to ink, while blank areas repel ink. Used primarily for fine reproduction, including labels for fiberboard boxes.
A generic term for any printing process in which the image area and the non- image area exist on the same plate and are separated by a chemical repulsion. Usually oil based offset printing.
I confess this one has me puzzled. When I was in school, litho fell into the "original prints" category; you used a "litho" crayon on a "litho" stone and pulled a print from it. But these days I've seen litho used to mean the same thing as offset printing. Just ask.
A common method of printing stamps and cachets in which the design is transferred from a smooth plate by selective inks which wet only the design portion of the printing plate.
all-metal button with a lithographed design
A generic term for printed material. Most typically used to refer to offset printed paper that is intended to be mounted to a display.
Litho printing is a planographic process. This means that the image area and the non-image area both lie on the surface on the surface of the printing plate in the same place. It works on the principle that oil and water won't mix. The printing plate is treated to produce ink-receptive areas for the image and water-receptive areas for the non-image. The plate is first wet with water, then immediately by ink, creating the desired image in the ink-receptive area.
Combining forms relating to a stone or calculus. Stone, calculus
