The optical properties of the Woodburytype—an alternative printing technique based on a gelatine/pigment matrix

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The Woodburytype is a 19th century photomechanical printing method, producing high-quality continuous-tone images that use a suspension of carbon black in gelatine as a relief print, in which the variation in height of the print produces the grayscale and contrast. We propose a phenomenological optical model for the process based on Kubelka-Munk theory that considers the ink formulation, the print height and the substrate surface in order to provide the ideal combination of printing depth and contrast.