Abstract: Printed materials such as tickets, lottery forms, cards and contest forms, bearing a hidden message which is revealable by scratching off a covering opaque layer, are prepared by printing the message on the substrate, lithographing a protective layer such as a clear varnish or a pigmented varnish-ink over the hidden message, and then lithographing a hiding coat over the applied protective layer. The protective layer formulation and the hiding coat layer are both based upon compatible, preferably the same, film forming resin systems, and are deposited from a common solvent. The protective layer may provide a clear, colorless transparent film through which the message may be viewed, or a colored see-through layer, so that it constitutes one color layer also for the printing of other areas of the substrate.