1) Granulate the stone with sand
2) Draw with a pencil or lithographic ink
3) Fix the drawing on the stone with acid
4) Install the stone on the "beast with horns " machine
5) Prepare the ink roller
6) Dampen the stone
7) Ink the drawing on the stone with the roller
8) Apply a sheet and protect it
9) Pass the sheet under the pressure of the scraper

However, lithography quickly runs up against the problem of colour. In the beginning many lithographs were coloured by hand after printing only in black. However, it was soon found to be essential that a stone for each colour was needed. The first chromolithographer, Godefroy Engelmann who patented his invention in 1837, broke up the pallet into three primary colours - yellow, red and blue, adding a fourth stone for black, all other colors were then obtained by superimposition. He had just invented the principle of the quadrichromic printing.
Colour lithography as practised in workshops nowadays, requires as many stones or zinc plates as there are colours in the composition : 12 colors thus means 12 machine runs of the same lithograph. Each colour takes its place on the paper sheet following very precise benchmarks ; after 12 machine runs you have a successful image : a 12 colour lithograph.

This new industrial process of creation and distribution immediately attracted the artists , because it supported the spontaneity and variety of the plastic effects. Its methods are close to those of drawing or painting, whilst engraving requires particular technical training and imposes certain constraints.
In the middle of the 19th century, the romantic painters Géricault and Delacroix, and then Daumier and Goya gradually used black and white in a more and more expressive way, thus giving the technique a certain nobility.
Well before the end of the 19th century, the impressionists such as Manet, Degas and Renoir were filled with enthusiasm for colour lithography, which enabled them to express all the shimmers, all the nuances which they had in their head.
Lithography then exploded with the pioneers of the advertising poster like Toulouse-Lautrec, Chéret and Mucha, and became a means of expression appreciated more and more by the artists for its sharp colours, its half-tone subtleties and its pencil sketch results.
Some of these artists, drawers of great talent, owe their celebrity status to lithography whilst at the same time their painting work has been relegated to the shade (Daumier, Chéret, Forain, Mucha, Steinlen...).

The rise of lithography increased during the 20th century : it is easy to trace the expansion through the classical modern artists; Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, Miro and Braque expressed themselves with brilliance in this technique.
For the collectors, a new market was born : that of the lithograph and the artist's book. The rarity factor was sought and editors start to number editions to ensure a handsome price.
Workshops whose names went round the world are associated with printing lithographs for the School of Paris great Masters : Mourlot, Clot, Pons and Desjobert...
Without changing its guiding principle, lithography moved with technology during the 20th century, machines are gradually electrified, stone is gradually replaced by zinc or aluminium plate, or tracing paper.

In the second part of the 20th century, while industrial lithography is gradually replaced by the quadrichromic offset techniques, lithography more and more became a technique limited only to the artistic sphere which spreads round the world : prestigious workshops are born in the USA such as Gemini, ULAE and Tyler Graphics and contribute in a major way to the diffusion of new contemporary art movements like abstract expressionism (Motherwell, Rothko...) or pop art (Warhol, Lichtenstein...).
More recently, artists such as Alechinsky, Barcelo, Tapiès and Zao Wou-Ki perpetuate the tradition of the original fine art print, but find little support among the younger generations of artists.

Nowadays, lithography and the contemporary fine art print in general suffer from public disinterest, consequently there is a lack of collectors, gallery owners no longer give enough support, and the younger generations of artists do not take time any more to come and work in the workshops as elder artists did, as they prefer to create and sell original works which is more profitable.
After the excesses from the 60's, 70's and 80's, when the fine art print was looked upon as a gravy train, and became the victim of unrestrained speculation, the fine art print market except for few media stars, interests few people any more.
In France, many lithographic or engraving workshops have already closed their doors or are in difficulty, art publishers are gradually disappearing without being replaced. Two centuries of knowledge are vanishing before our eyes, because in the era of computer processes, the workshops no longer teach a rising generation of printers and lithographic workers, but instead they reduce their manpower for lack of work.

Re-education is required to explain to the public and also to art dealers and gallery owners what an original fine art print is, but also a new generation of art collectors (especially fine art print collectors) is needed : visiting a museum or an exhibition are the first steps, but going to a gallery and purchasing artworks would be more beneficial to our trades. Thus would allow artists, workshops and publishers to continue with their wonderful creation and collaboration work, which allowed so many masterworks to be created in the past, Jazz by Henri Matisse published by Tériade and printed by Mourlot, or "Suite Vollard" by Picasso published by Vollard and printed by Lacourière are fine examples.

However, a new hope is drawning with the development of the photographic and comic strip markets : photographers and comic strip artists are starting to be interested in lithography which offers to them the same possibility as the painters to produce limited fine art print editions of great quality to release their works to the public.