Photosensitive recording material, and method of half-tone etching.

摘要

The recording material comprises a substrate having thereon: (a) an image layer 0.3 to 3.0 microns thick comprising a film-forming vehicle (preferably a styrene-maleic anhydride copolymer material, preferably comprising a bimodal material with approximately equal quantities by weight of high molecular weight copolymer and low molecular weight material) and, preferably a colorant; and (b) a positive- or negative-working photoresist layer of thickness 0.5 to 2.0 microns (preferably as described in British Specification 1548764). The chemical composition and physical parameters of such recording materials so as to produce etchable half-tone images with very good exposure and development latitude are disclosed. Also disclosed is a method of half-tone etching of half-tone image on a recording material comprising a developer-insoluble resist layer (20) and a developer-soluble image layer (24 min ), which comprises treating the halftone image with the developer to selectively remove portions of the perimeters of the image area without significantly changing the thickness or density of the image layer.