As the burin moves across the plate, copper shavings, called burr, are forced to either side of the lines being created, and are usually cleaned from the plate before printing. An engraved line has a sharp and clean appearance. Drypoint prints are created by scratching a drawing on the plate with a needle. The incised lines of a drypoint are shallower than those in an etching, and in this technique the burr is not scraped away before printing. The result is characterized by heavier, softer-looking lines than those in an engraving.
Mezzotints have soft tonalities ranging from gray to black.
In this method, the entire surface of the plate is roughened by a spiked tool called a rocker, so that, if inked, the entire plate would print in solid black. Etching has been a favored technique for artists for centuries, thanks largely to the ease with which an etched image is created. The artist creates his or her composition by drawing through the ground to expose the metal. For printing, the ground is removed, ink is introduced into the incised lines, and the plate is wiped clean. The plate is covered with dampened paper and run through a press under great pressure in order to force the paper into the lines, resulting in the raised characteristic of etching.