Homebrew PCBs

I saw a process used by a fab house and they used a negative photo 
resist and then tin coated the board.  The tin only stuck to the 
places that had the bare copper.  Then the board was chemically etched 
and the tin protects the copper.  Would we possibly be able to come up 
with a similar system of printing a negative image and then tin 
plating before etching?  The toner would probably melt when you tried 
to tin the board with an iron, but maybe a chemical plating process?

Does anyone know for sure if tin etches away with FeCl?  I might have 
to try it at lunch...haha.

matt