Home CD printing is now possible using printers available in a range of prices.
Printing personalized labels and graphics directly onto the surface of blank CDs and DVDs used to be a high-priced task best left for professional businesses, which were the only ones who could afford the equipment. Thankfully, numerous affordable printers of various types and styles are now available that can be used to create quality CD graphics right at home.
Heat Transfer Printers
One of the first types of printers used specifically for printing on the surface of CDs at home were heat transfer printers. These typically printed only black lettering and graphics on the surface of individual CDs by applying heat to a ribbon that transferred the ink to the CD. The resulting image was crisp and clean, and the process was fairly cheap. Modern thermal printers can now print in full color as well as simple black ink, and the highest-end machines offer photo-realistic output with resolutions of up to 400 dpi. Low-end machines such as the stand-alone CW-K85 by Casio simply print titles in a variety of fonts onto the surface of the CD and can be had for a price of about $100 or less. High-end machines such as the TEAC P-55 print in full color that rivals screen printing and cost about $5,000. Many more brands are available between these price ranges.
Dedicated Inkjet CD Printers
Inkjet printers have brought the cost of home printing down substantially since they were first introduced in the 1950s, and now they remain the most popular form of computer printer for home use. Cartridges filled with the basic CMYK inks spray droplets onto the surface of the CD to form images and words. Dedicated inkjet printers made specifically for CDs have made printing full-color artwork directly onto the surface of blank CDs easy. The Disc Makers Medley 440 inkjet printer (retailing around $400) prints one CD at a time when the disc is placed into the dedicated tray. Images are up to 4800 by 1200 dpi resolution and are photo quality, and individual ink cartridges can be replaced as they empty. Another brand is the Dymo DiscPainter (retailing for around $300) that can print at 600 or 1200 dpi in as little as 30 seconds to as long as 8 minutes depending on how much ink you want to use.
Multiuse Ink Jet Printers
Numerous inkjet printers offer a wide array of applications, from full color printing on paper and glossy photo printing to direct CD printing. The Epson Stylus Photo 1400 allows users to insert blank CDs into a special tray and print full color graphics and words directly onto the surface in resolutions of up to 5760 by 1440 dpi. Prices can range from $300 down to just above $200 with rebates. Being able to print on a variety of media---paper, photo, CD---gives the user the opportunity to use one machine for numerous projects, making for a very versatile machine. Another similar machine is the HP Photosmart D5160, which prints photos, color prints and personalized CDs and DVDs as well. It retails for less than $100.
Tags: onto surface, full color, directly onto, directly onto surface, print full, print full color, machines such