The hand stenciling. The first commercial collotypes were produced in 1868 in Germany by Josef Albert and in 1869 in England by Ernst Edwards. Until the development of the half-tone screen it was the only photomechanical process, besides hand photogravure, capable of reproducing tone.
Collotype is the most accurate and beautiful method of photomechanical reproduction yet invented.
It has the advantage that it can render continuous graduations of tone without the intervention of a screen. But the making and printing of collotype plates is skilled and expensive work and can easily go wrong. Variations in humidity are likely to upset the balance of moisture in the gelatin causing it to swell or shrink. The surface is too delicate to produce more than two thousand impressions. For these reasons, collotype has been used for luxury publications and, since World War II, has been largely abandoned for other commercial purposes.