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What are Prints
unlike paintings or drawings, generally exist in multiple examples. They are created by drawing a composition not directly on paper but on another surface, called a matrix, and then, by various techniques, printing that image on paper. Those techniques may involve the use of one or another kind of printing press and ink, or the image may be transferred by pressing the paper by hand onto the inked surface of the matrix and rubbing. There are three principle printmaking techniques: relief printing (woodcut, wood engraving), intaglio printing (etching etc.), and planographic (lithography, screenprinting etc.).
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Woodcut is the earliest and most enduring, in that it is still practiced, of all print techniques. While woodcuts were first seen in ninth-century China,
Western artists have made woodcut prints since the fourteenth century. They were originally conceived as religious icons and sold as souvenirs of a pilgrimage to some holy site. Woodcut soon became a popular medium for the mass distribution of religious and instructive imagery in Europe.

Color Woodcuts, in the West a product of the nineteenth century, use the same techniques as chiaroscuros, but often carried to an enormous complexity of multiple blocks and over-lapping, and they commonly employ more realistic colors. The greater the complexity, the greater the rate of failed or imperfect impressions, so impressions of many color woodcuts are both rare and expensive.

Etching has been a favored technique for artists for centuries, thanks largely to the ease with which an etched image is created. An etching begins with a metal plate (usually copper) that has been coated with a waxy substance called a "ground." The artist creates composition by drawing through the ground to expose the metal. The plate is then immersed in an acid bath, which "bites" or chemically dissolves the exposed lines. For printing, the ground is removed, ink is introduced into the incised lines, and the plate is wiped clean. The plate is covered with dampened paper and run through a press under great pressure in order to force the paper into the lines, resulting in the raised characteristic of etching.

Lithography
Invented in 1798, lithography is perhaps best known from the prints of the 1890s by artists like Pierre Bonnard, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. To make a lithograph, the artist uses a greasy medium such as crayon or tusche to create a composition on a stone or plate. The surface is then dampened with water, which is repelled by the greasy areas, sticking only to the sections of the plate that have not been marked by the artist. Next, printer's ink is applied to the plate with a roller. This, in turn, sticks only to the greasy sections, as the water protects the rest of the plate. The stone is then covered with paper and run through a printing press to create the print.
Screen printing (Silkscreen)
Screenprinting does not require a printing press. This technique was made famous in the 1960s, when artists such as Andy Warhol exploited screenprinting's bold, commercial look to make Pop icons such as Warhol's famous images of Campbell's Soup cans. To make a screenprint, an image that has been cut out of a material such as paper or fabric is attached to a piece of tautly stretched mesh. Paint is then forced through the mesh-or screen-onto a sheet of paper below by means of a squeegee. The uncovered areas of the screen will, of course, allow the paint to pass through, while the areas covered by the compositional shapes will not.



For works with more than one color, a separate screen is required for each color.
Edition
Multiple "impressions" are made by printing new pieces of paper from the matrix in the same way. The total number of impressions an artist decides to make for any one image is called an edition. In modern times each impression in an edition is signed and numbered by the artist, but this is a relatively recent practice.
Numbering & Signatures
All limited edition prints should be numbered, with the first number being the impression number and the second number representing the total edition, thus 12/50, impression number 12 from an edition of 50. This number excludes artist's proofs. It is usual for original prints to be signed by artists in pencil, ink or crayon. An unsigned impression of the same print is generally not as commercially valuable.
Artist's Proofs (AP)
Formerly, when an artist was commissioned to execute a print, he was provided with lodging and living expenses, a printing studio and workmen, supplies and paper. The artist was given a portion of the edition (to sell) as payment for his work. Today, though artists get paid for their editions, the tradition of the "artist's proof" has persisted and a certain number of impressions are put aside for the artist to do with as he will. Artist's proofs are annotated as such or as A.P. or E.A. They often acquire more value because of personal association with the artist.
 Canceling Plates (C.P.)
In modern terms, after a limited edition of a print is completed, the plate or stone or block may be erased or defaced with lines or holes to discourage further printing. This ensures the integrity of the size of the original edition by either preventing any further printings or by making any later printings recognizably different from the original ones.