Heliogravure belongs to the same family of intaglio printing techniques as engraving, etching and aquatint. As such, it requires an especially good quality of thick paper, one that can draw out the ink from the furthest recesses of the etched copper. In like manner, the plate embosses the finished prints, for its form is impressed into the dampened paper as they pass together through the rollers. Printed by hand in limited quantities, each heliogravure is considered an original, and its value is accordingly assured. A means of reproducing a photograph by printing on paper from an inked and etched copper plate. Perfected by Karl Klíc in 1879, the process came into general use in the 1890s for photographic reproductions. Over time, photogravures have become increasingly valued as works of fine art. Today photogravure is considered one of the finest and most time intensive of the photographic processes. Heliogravure is praised by connoisseurs the world over, because of the incomparably rich palette of blacks and shades of gray, the breadth of tonal range, and its exquisite expressiveness. Despite these qualities, Heliogravure has pretty much disappeared over the last fifty years: the costly and time-consuming traditional heliogravure technique has been abandoned in favor of cheaper, faster modern industrial printing methods, such as offset and rotogravure. In the early part of the 20th century, heliogravure was the method of choice for reproductions appearing in high quality books and artistic photographic reproduction. Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) employed the technique for reproducing the photographs appearing in his celebrated quarterly Camera Work,published from 1903 to 1917. Before World War I, many considered heliogravure as an artistic medium in its own right.