>
>
> Does anyone on the list know the english name (german: Lichtdruck) of the
> professional/commercial/mechanical version of oil printing (printing from a
> glass plate with a gelatin relief to make high quality prints)?
>
> Does anyone have experiences with this process or could give any information
> about the results compared to that of photogravures ?
>
>
I do not have any direct experience, other than looking at prints, which
by the way were very beautiful, but it sounds like you are describing the
collotype process. Very basically it involves inking a reticulated
gelatin relief in sending it through the press. I can reccommend Kent
Kirby's book "Studio Collotype" published by Heliochrome Press.
The collotypes that I have seen exhibit more subtlety and grace than
photogravures, and seem to be capable of finer detail, possibly because
it is a continuous tone process and not dependant on generated dot
patterns to produce continuous tones. This observation may have to do
with the skill of the printmakers, rather than the processes, but I'm
sure someone with more hands on experience from the list will clarify this.
Also check out William Crawford's book "Keepers of Light".