An application of the scanning near-field optical/atomic force microscopy (SNOAM) is described in this paper. Near-field exposures have been demonstrated by SNOAM. The SNOAM has been used to process conventional photoresists optically. In the optical imaging mode of SNOAM, a lateral resolution of similar to 100 nm has been consistently obtained, whereas in the processing mode, pits down to similar to 200 nm in diameter have been produced in positive photoresist films.