A plate for creating holograms or other light-bending or diffractive microstructures on web-shaped or sheet-shaped printing substrates includes a relief for a relief printing process. The relief is formed of one or more raised dies and one or more adjacent depressions. A non-metallic microrelief for printing or embossing the microstructure is provided exclusively on the dies. The plate may be manufactured in a process in which a primary plate has a negative of the microrelief and the microrelief is created by molding the negative.

A method includes providing a multiplicity of masters, each of the masters having a substrate body and at least one master hologram, selecting a sequence of masters from the multiplicity of masters based on a plurality of holograms to be replicated and arranging the sequence of masters on a first carrier to align upper faces of the masters in a horizontal plane, detachably laminating a light-sensitive composite web on the aligned upper faces, exposing the masters to replicate the master holograms in the light-sensitive composite web, and detaching the exposed composite web from the masters. The masters are detachably incorporated in the first carrier such that a sequence and/or composition of the masters for replicating the plurality of holograms is variable. The masters are incorporated in the first carrier such that two or more faces of the masters are optically accessible for exposure.