Editing Edition (printmaking) (section)

== Modern practice ==
Prints by artists today may potentially retain their financial value as art (i.e., as an appreciating investment) because they are created by an artistic process rather than by a strictly mechanical one, and may become scarce because the number of multiples is limited. In [[Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn|Rembrandt]]'s time, the limit on the size of an edition was practical: a plate degrades through use, putting an upper limit on the number of images to be struck. Plates can be reworked and restored to some degree, but it is generally not possible to create more than a thousand prints from any process except lithography or woodcut. A few hundred is a more practical upper limit, and even that allows for significant variation in the quality of the image. In drypoint, 10 or 20 may be the maximum number of top-quality impressions possible.

Today, artists will sometimes refer to a print as a "one-off," meaning that the artist has made a unique print and no reproductions of it from the original matrix, often not even a proof. In this category one sometimes finds monotypes, monoprints, collagraphs, altered prints with collage or chine colle additions, or even hand-colored prints. There remain artists who are strong advocates of "artist's prints" which are conceived, printed, signed, and given the edition number 1/1 by the artist.