Adhesive Labels or Protective Disc Covers on CDs or DVDs: A Big Taboo

[jpphoto]

NEVER NEVER - use a Sharpie pen to write on a cd/dvd. The ink will after time eat the coating and render the disk unusable. They make special pens that are specifically designed for use on CD/DVD's. They are chemically inert unlike the sharpie ink.

I use a pen from Delkin Devices called an "Archival Gold". I found it at my local Pro Photo shop.

I also never put anything with adhesives on my disks. Once had one almost get caught in my laptop (several years ago before the inkjet printing was avaliable) NEVER again. Threw the disk and all the things to make the stickers out that day.

[FrenchRidgeline]

The Epson R200 does a nice job of printing on printable CD's and DVD's which can be found just about anywhere anymore.

[DesertRidgeline]

I ended up having to re-record all my home burnt CD's to lightscribe discs because all my old CD's had the stomper type of labels (adhesive) stuck on them since my old car never had a CD player in it (I used an Ipaq handheld computer with a cassette adapter) it was okay to use them for the computer.

I've seen a lot of radios that have been replaced due to jammed CD's in them and the majority of them so far have been home burned cd's. Whether or not they had adhesive labels on them or not I don't know.

THe new software for the LIghtscribe does a nice job in graytones. It's far darker with more contrast than the earlier versions of it. And the media is now almost on the same pricing level as non lightscribe CD's. Overall I now love the lightscribe burned labels. I adopted the technology when it first came out and still have a huge spindle of CD's that I never used because the quality was pretty poor IMO when it first came out where as now, the "best" setting actually produces a nice label. The only real poor quality that I find with the lightscribe labels now is if the background is black then it produces a streaky black so I try to avoid designing lables that have pure black backgrounds.

TIp for lightscribe users: If you don't feel your cd is coming out with enough contrast, then burn the label twice and it will be with substantially more contrast. Nero allows you to set how many times you wish to burn the label (that was smart of them) and even with the new drivers, I still set Nero to burn 2 labels, and it gives some nice contrast on the burned labels.

[join1982]

It's Doing A Pretty Good Job!