The term Woodburytype refers to both a photomechanical process and the print produced by this process. The process produces continuous tone images in slight relief. A chromated gelatin film is exposed under a photographic negative, which hardens in proportion to the amount of light. Then it is developed in hot water to remove all the unexposed gelatin and dried. This relief is pressed into a sheet of lead in a press with 5000 psi

Pounds per square inch

The pound per square inch or, more accurately, pound-force per square inch is a unit of pressure or of stress based on avoirdupois units...

. This is an intaglio

Intaglio (printmaking)

Intaglio is a family of printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a surface, known as the matrix or plate, and the incised line or area holds the ink. Normally, copper or zinc plates are used as a surface, and the incisions are created by etching, engraving, drypoint, aquatint or...

 plate. It is used as a mold and is filled with pigmented gelatin. The gelatin layer is then pressed onto a paper support.

The Woodburytype was developed by Walter B. Woodbury

Walter B. Woodbury

Walter Bentley Woodbury was an inventor and pioneering English photographer. He was one of the earliest photographers in Australia and the Dutch East Indies...

 in 1864, first used in a publication in 1866 and widely used for  
fine book illustration from about 1870 to 1900. It was the only commercially successful method for producing illustration material capable of replicating the subtleties and details of a photograph. It is the only mechanical printing method ever invented which produces true middle values and does not make use of a screen or other image deconstruction method.

Sources

• Art & Architecture Thesaurus, s.v. "Woodburytype (process)". Accessed 28 September 2006.
• Auer, Michèle, and Michel Auer. Encyclopédie internationale des photographes de 1839 à nos jours/Photographers Encyclopaedia International 1839 to the Present (Hermance: Editions Camera Obscura, 1985).
• Bloom, John. "Woodbury and Page: Photographers of the Old Order". In Toward Independence: A Century of Indonesia Photographed (San Francisco: The Friends of Photography, 1991), 29-30.
• Oliver, Barret
  Barret Oliver
  Barret Spencer Oliver is an American actor and photographer. He is best known for his role as Bastian Bux in the film adaptation of Michael Ende's novel The NeverEnding Story.-Career:...
  
  . A History of the Woodburytype: The First Successful Photomechanical Printing Process and Walter Bentley Woodbury (Nevada City, Ca, Carl Mautz Publishing, 2007).
• Ovenden, Richard. John Thomson (1837-1921): Photographer (Edinburgh: National Library of Scotland, The Stationary Office, 1997), 35-36, 216.
• Rosenblum, Naomi
  Naomi Rosenblum
  Naomi Rosenblum is a historian of photography, best known for A World History of Photography and A History of Women Photographers...
  
  . A World History of Photography (New York: Abbeville Press, 1984), 34, 197-198.
• Union List of Artist Names, s.v. "Woodbury, Walter Bentley". Accessed 28 September 2006.

External links

• The Woodburytype Process