Printing plates question

[timo ronkainen]

Hi!

>What exactly are printing plates?
>And are they from a certain period, or are they still used today?

Printing plate's form depends on what kind of printing method you use, and 
so on. Well, in ancient times (1930' to 50's or so) plates were quite heavy 
half-cylinder shaped things made of tin (casted with mold). Those things 
were mounted on printer machine's cylinder. That was called letterpress, I 
think (I'm not sure of english terms).
Offset-printing started to use much lighter plates (thin metal), which were 
done with certain photochemical process using films.
Nowadays you can print books completely without films or plates, with 
digital press.

>picture of what has to be printed on paper. Is that a printing
>plate?

Yes.

Timo

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