The photosensitive composition, which is suitable as a photoresist material in fine patterning works for the manufacture of semiconductor devices, contains, as a photoextinctive agent, a combination of an alkali-insoluble dye and an alkali-soluble dye each having absorptivity of light in the wavelength region from 230 to 500 nm in a specified amount and in a specified ratio between them. By virtue of the formulation of combined dyes, the undesirable phenomenon of halation by the underlying aluminum coating layer on the substrate surface is greatly decreased so that patterned resist layer obtained with the composition is a high-fidelity reproduction of the original pattern even in a submicron range of fineness with good rectangularity of the cross sectional form of the patterned lines.