Since nobody has answered so far, I'll take a stab. These are semi-educated guesses :-)

stamping - a general category of press-working that involves pressure forming or cutting of stationary sheet metal.

embossing - to raise a design on a blank with dies of similar pattern, one the negative of the other. Design can be cosmetic or functional. I believe that embossing may involve rolling the sheet metal pressed between cylindrical dies that bear the pattern to be raised. The embossed pattern could be repeated over the entire surface, or a functional feature such as a raised bead.

branding - not sure, but perhaps the creation of a permanent impression of a label in the metal, using dies, with a design or type indicating information such as logo, model, etc.

pressworking - a general term that includes operations such as blanking, punching, drawing, embossing, etc.

Cynthia,

Check out these sites below. They should give you some idea of what these processes are and you can probably make some determination from that, or at least search for additional information from them. Good luck.

GG

http://www.advantagefabricatedmetal.com/stamping-process.html

http://www.advantagefabricatedmetal.com/embossing-process.html

http://www.richardsonbus.com/products/metalmarking.html

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3101/is_n3_v66/ai_14381247

Thanks for that info.

Here's what the Richardson link says about "branding":

Branding: The method of producing a color transferred character through the use of a heating system and colored foils.

I think that you are coming up against the use of similar terms for the same thing, by different companies/corporations, in different trades & locations. For instance, "embossing" is generally used for working a tooled design into leather, but the leather trades do not own the word, and I have heard it used to describe decorations stamped into sheet metal, as well.

A co-worker of mine used to work in a factory making silverware(table ware), & he used the term "stamping" to describe the process.

The most general word that applies here is "forming," when you are speaking of changing flat sheet metal into a three dimensional shape, using permanent steel dies, and some sort of press.

I don't know what branding is. I personally refer to antique toys, made in Japan after WW-II, as "lithograph steel toys," referring to the printing process used to color the surface of the steel sheet, before forming it to shape.