PURPOSE: To improve the image quality by deleting the portion located around the pass hole section between the effective section and the peripheral section of a shadow mask bored with many electron beam pass holes at a distance of 0.5mm or less.

CONSTITUTION: Rays from a light source 11 are fed through pass hole sections 131, 132 of a shield plate 12 and are converged by a lens, then they are exposed on a negative dry plate 5 made of glass, many dots 161, 162 at a distance of 0.5mm or less are formed while a table 17 is moved, and dots are formed over the area larger than the circumferential line 20 between the effective section 18 and the peripheral section 19. Next, after exposing the circumferential line 20 is exposed and developed, dots outside the circumferential line are deleted to produce an original for a shadow mask. The shadow mask material is print-etched by using this to produce the shadow mask. Accordingly, the difference in level at the contour of the effective section 18 is eliminated and the quality of the image can be improved.