Process camera

Article summary

A process camera is a specialised form of camera used for the reproduction of graphic material. Before the advent of color scanners, color process work was undertaken by the process camera, by a skilled operator. This was achieved by using various filters to produce a set of four film separations — cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK). This, in turn, was usually color-corrected by another tradesman called a color retoucher. After the introduction of color scanners in the 1970s, the process camera was gradually only used for monochrome line-work or less often monochrome tone-work. The original artwork was photographed and the negatives produced were eventually used for production of printing plates. This task was completed by another skilled tradesman called a "film make-up planner", who would use a contact frame to photograph the various film layers they had created containing masked tints, text in film form and the separations produced by the process camera or color scanner. The final film sets were used to produce printing plates, in a process called stripping. Prepared film was then placed into a vacuum frame that was used to expose the image onto the ultraviolet-sensitive printing plates. Finally, exposed plates would be developed and processed for printing. See offset printing and photozincography (heliozincography) for more information on this process.…

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