Letterpress vs. emboss/deboss

a Deboss is easy. Just add packing hard or soft it is up to you. An emboss requires a die and a couter die.

You can deboss with your photopolymer plate and have it inked at the same time.

Am emboss would require printing the area and then doing the emboss in a second run.

My understanding of the terms are this:
EMBOSSING: the surface of the paper/card is raised by pressing the paper/card between an engaved/etched female die and an “accommodating” male die. “Blind” embossing is the term used when embossing and it is not covered with ink. “Embossing” is the term used when the embossing effect is to enhance a printed image.
DEBOSSING: is a term that seems to have crept into the industry, in earlier days it was then used in a derogatory manner to indicate the excess use of pressure during the letterpress process. Nowadays, one cannot deny the lovely and special effect of excess pressure of letters onto fancy cards combined with innovative typography and colours. BUT it is only an effect or a consequence of excess pressure. Traditionally, well trained printers took all steps to protect their type and machines from excess wear caused by unnecessary pressure, hence they painstakingly printed by the “kiss” method which means that as ink, type and paper meet at the moment of impression, just enough pressure was used to transfer ink to paper with almost invisible indentation on the paper. The progress of letterpress printing and the desire for the perfect printed image brought letterpress to its heights, just before it became uneconomical as a printing method.
RAISED PRINTING, also known as vercotyping, is a combination of heat applied to a resinous compound that has “stuck” to a freshly printed image of either letterpress or offset. It is meant to be a cheaper economical way of delivering “embossed effects”. When done very well it is quite dazzling, but too often not good.
WILLIAM AMER Pressed Letters, Australia
Hand and Machine Compositor and Printer

William in the states “vercotyping” is know as “thermography.”

In the U.S. most printers refer to the raised printing achieved with resin and heat as thermography.
Some of the ancients still say vircotype, so that term was used here.
inky

OBJECTION, I’m not an “ancient”. Inky would do better showing a lot more respect and not be quite so patronizing.
William Amer, Australia

At Hallmark Cards it is simply called “Virko”.
Don’t bother specking “thermography”,
in house, you’ll just get a puzzled look.

To Mr. William Amer
I said that rather badly and after reading your response that is quite clear. I should have said “we ancients”. I meant no offense to you and had myself in the catagory of ancients, but didn’t say that.
inky

Inky,
in Aussie parlance. “Good onya, Mate!’
Thanks for your response, looking forward to more contact.
William Amer