Methods of roughening a surface of a printing form precursor and printing using a roughened printing form precursor

A method of producing a printing form having an image from a printing form precursor, the image formed of hydrophobic regions and hydrophilic regions, the method comprising the steps of:

• a) subjecting at least a first part of a surface of the printing form precursor to a first energy in the form of pulses of electromagnetic radiation to produce a uniformly hydrophilic roughened surface on at least the first part of the printing form precursor and converting the uniformly hydrophilic roughened surface to a uniformly hydrophobic roughened surface to provide the hydrophobic regions, wherein the pulse length of the pulses of electromagnetic radiation of the first energy is up to 2.5×10−7 s, and wherein the pulse length, pulse energy, and fluence of the pulses of electromagnetic radiation of the first energy are selected to produce the uniformly hydrophobic roughened surface after conversion, having a roughness with an Ra value measured using light interference microscopy of from 0.15 to 12 μm;
• and
• b) subjecting at least a second part of the surface of the printing form precursor to a second energy in the form of pulses of electromagnetic radiation to provide the hydrophilic regions, wherein the pulse length of the pulses of electromagnetic radiation of the second energy is up to 2.5×10−7 s, and wherein the pulse length, pulse energy, and fluence of the pulses of electromagnetic radiation of the second energy are selected to produce the uniformly hydrophilic roughened surface having a roughness with an Ra value measured using light interference microscopy of from 0.15 to 12 μm.