"To accompany the publication of this book, an exhibition, also titled The printed picture, is presented in The Edward Steichen Photography Galleries of The Museum of Modern Art, October 2008 through spring 2009"--T.p. verso.

Includes index.

Relief printing : woodcut, metal type, and wood engraving -- Intaglio and planographic printing : engraving, etching, mezzotint, and lithography -- Color printing : hand coloring and multiple-impression color -- Bits and pieces : modern art prints, oddities, and photographic precursors -- Early photography in silver : daguerreotypes, early silver paper processes and tintypes -- Non-silver processes : carbon, blueprint, platinum, and a couple of others -- Modern photography : developing-out gelatin silver printing -- Color notes : primary colors and neutrality -- Color photography : separation-based processes and chromogenic prints -- Photography in ink : relief and intaglio printing : the letterpress halftone and gravure printing -- Photography in ink : planographic printing : collotype and photo offset lithography -- Digital processes : binary issues, inkjet, dye sublimation, and digital C-prints -- Where do we go from here? : some questions about the future.

"The Painted Picture traces the changing technology of picture-making from the Renaissance to the present, focusing on the vital role of images in multiple copies. From woodblocks to modern color photographs, from engravings to bar codes, from daguerreotypes to today's digital wonders, the book succinctly examines the full range of pictorial processes. Exploring how pictures look by describing how they are made, author Richard Benson reaches fresh conclusions about what pictures can mean. Presented as a series of one-page essays opposite the pictures they examine, the book retains the engaging, informal style of Benson's celebrated seminars at Yale University."--BOOK JACKET.