The areas that are corroded, or bitten, will hold ink, and when a sheet of moistened paper is placed over the plate and run through a press under pressure, the image is transferred to the paper. Areas of the plate that have been masked out during the development of the plate are still the original smooth metal and will hold no ink; these are white areas in the finished print.

 Artists have been creating fine works of art on paper using scribed and etched copper and zinc since 1446. The term used to describe the etching process is intaglio, Italian for indentation, to cut or incise. A metal plate usually copper or zinc, is etched using a steel stylus and various acids or mordents. Lines and textures are obtained by the artist by controlling how and where the acid corrodes the surface of the metal.