Blueprint vs. Cyanotype — What's the Difference?

A blueprint is a reproduction of a technical drawing or engineering drawing using a contact print process on light-sensitive sheets. Introduced by Sir John Herschel in 1842, the process allowed rapid and accurate production of an unlimited number of copies.

Cyanotype is a photographic printing process that produces a cyan-blue print. Engineers used the process well into the 20th century as a simple and low-cost process to produce copies of drawings, referred to as blueprints.

A contact print of a drawing or other image rendered as white lines on a blue background, especially such a print of an architectural plan or technical drawing. Also called cyanotype.

See blueprint.

A mechanical drawing produced by any of various similar photographic processes, such as one that creates blue or black lines on a white background.

(uncountable) An early photographic process employing paper sensitized with a cyanide.

A detailed plan of action.

(countable) A photographic print produced by means of this process.

A model or prototype.

A photographic picture obtained by the use of a cyanide.

To make a blueprint of.

To lay a plan for.

A type of paper-based reproduction process producing white-on-blue images, used primarily for technical and architecture's drawings, now largely replaced by other technologies.

A print produced with this process.

A detailed technical drawing (now often in some electronically storable and transmissible form).

Any detailed plan, whether literal or figurative.

To make a blueprint for.

To make a detailed operational plan for.

See under Print.

Something intended as a guide for making something else;

Photographic print of plans or technical drawings etc.

Make a blueprint of