A method for making conductive traces and interconnects on a surface of a substrate (104) includes, for an embodiment, forming a dielectric or polymer layer (404) on the surface of the substrate (104), forming a seed layer (402) of an electrically conductive material on the dielectric or polymer layer (404), pat-terning a photoresist on the seed layer, forming the conductive traces on the patterned photoresist and seed layer, removing the photoresist from the substrate (104), and irradiating the surface of the substrate with a fluence of laser light (108) effective to ablate the seed layer (402) from areas of the substrate surface exclusive of the conductive traces.