Sometimes people need to have a design or message incised on a surface that is usually hard and also flat and the process of cutting a number of grooves are known as engraving. There is time when one needs some object to be decorated is it silver, steel or gold and thus engraving onto such surfaces produces a very visually pleasing effect. Another use of engraving is to use a printing plate made of a metal (usually copper) to print images on paper, and this produced the same effect as was the case for different objects. From way back in time, such a means of making an image on paper has been used for artistic as well as commercial purposes, and also for creating the illustrations that you see in many books as also magazines.

Photography Has Taken Over

Of course, with modern technology affecting all walks of life, it is hardly surprising that new means are being used to do the job that was once performed by engravers and so now-a-days, photography is the preferred method for commercial needs, and in printmaking use is now made of etching instead of engraving.

The process used in engraving requires a hard steel tool to be used to cut designs on surfaces of which the copper plate is most often used. Of the different types of lines, the burin as the hard steel tool is known as will produce a very unique line that is usually steady as well as deliberate having very neat edges. Needless to say, different tools are used for different purposes.

The earliest know specimen of engraving was jewelry that dates to the first millennium Before Christ and the earliest methods used were known as chasing. Later, it came to be used for decorative purposes and still later it developed into engraving of copper printing plates in order to get more artwork images onto paper. However, etching began to give it a stiff run for its money since it was easier to perform and learn, and it soon gained the edge over it.

Today, with modern technology this method is used to create designs for banknotes that simply cannot be duplicated, and even some of the postage stamps that are classics in them are also made by this method. Even the method of hand engraving has managed to survive technological advances though only in a few specific fields and good examples of this form can be found in jewelry, firearms as well as on music instruments. And, it still lives on in the printing word as well.

A good example of mother's day engraving idea would no doubt be to try out the Laser Engraving iPod that is an Apple campaign that lends a very personal touch with whatever message one wishes to get engraved being done on the iPod's back, and messages such as "don't let dad borrow this" especially cute and worth giving a thought to.