Disc Artwork
At CDCentric.com, your CD artwork is printed directly onto the surface of the CD (called the "label surface" or "label side", but has nothing to do with a paper labels). This is accomplished using modern, fully automated screen-printing equipment. The inks used to print on the CD are ultraviolet inks - after each color is printed it is exposed to ultraviolet light to cure the ink. We have the ability to print up to 6 colors on your CD's.
We use the files you supply us to create films that are used to make the screens for your CD project. What we'll try to do now is share what we have been able to identify as the most common problem areas. If you still have questions, please feel free to contact us and let us know what we can do to help out.
Important "101" Stuff
1. Don't forget - the surface of a CD is silver, not white. If you are relying on creating shades of your colors (whether standard spot color printing or full-color, process/CMYK printing) by having/using white, you'll need to remember that in CD printing white is a color. You will need to use it as one of your spot colors, add a white flood/donut, or create a white screen and add as an additional spot color where a flood/donut isn't appropriate.
2. There are certain areas on a CD that printable - see below for a diagram. It is highly recommended that you use our CD artwork templates - they will automatically mask/knock-out nonprinting areas.
3. RGB-mode graphics can never work. The RGB color space was not designed for commercial printing - it is designed for your color monitor.
4. When using shading or % fills, anything below 15% will tend to disappear and anything above 85% will tend to fill in (these numbers might be a little more severe with certain colors).
5. Stay away from dainty serif fonts for small text - you won't get the best results.
6. If you use images/graphics of some sort - 300dpi unless you really know what you are wanting to do and the result.
7. Don't over do it - your CD spends most of its life spinning in a drive where nobody sees it or can read it (which is where we want it, right?). Simple, distinctive designs have the most effect on the user in the time they load it from package to player. Most commercial CD's are 3-colors or less. Half of those are 2-colors or less. People read your print and it is the first thing they see - put your extra muscle into your insert design.
8. If this is your first project it is well worth the investment of consulting with an experienced designer. You are spending good money on your project, and the difference between nice and wow could just be buying an hour of their time.
9. We never judge the artistic merits of a design, so we will never catch things like typos, misplacements, etc., and things that are ugly to us are very beautiful to others and visa versa. The time we spend with your artwork is to guarantee the best mechanical/manufacturing outcome. Be sure to review, review, and review again, before you send your final artwork off to us.
Types of CD Printing
There are two types of CD printing - Spot (or "PMS" or Pantone ) color and process (or "full" or "CMYK") color.
With spot color printing, each design object (text, shapes, etc.) is assigned a specific PMS value that translates to one of the thousands of Pantone color formulas and color reproduction is extremely accurate.
When printing in process (or "full" or "CMYK") color, the 4 basic process colors (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) are used to create an enormous number of resultant colors. It is important to consider the addition of a white flood to your design if vibrant, bright colors are used and /or heavy white shading (light colors) are relied on for visual effect. This will assure the most accurate color reproduction.
Our standard packages include up to 3 spot colors for printing your CD. There are options to add additional spot colors, add process color, and for adding a white flood underneath your artwork.
You can learn more about spot color printing here.
You can learn more about process color printing here.
A note for users of Adobe PhotoShop: Yes, PhotoShop can be used to do spot color, but it is way beyond the scope of this page to try and even begin a tutorial. We highly suggest Googling "PhotoShop spot color" for some good resources/tutorials. Please send us the native (.psd) file, flattened - never send a PhotoShop .eps file, as they do not work well for commercial printing.
Basic Information - CD Physical Printing Area
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As you can see from the above diagram, there are physical limitations as to how much of the CD surface we can actually print. Keep these values in mind when designing your artwork to avoid having parts of your design come up unprintable - like print getting cut off or part of an image missing.
- You will also notice that we don't print all of the way to the edges of the CD or all of the way into the center.
- The mirror band can be printed over, but the stacking ring can't.
Our templates have been created with a layer called "design here" for placement of your design content. By using this feature, your artwork will be have all non-printing areas masked/knocked out so that you will be able to see exactly "where what will print" automatically. These templates are identical to the ones we use to create your files for film creation.
You can find our CD Printing Templates here.
More Information
Please download and review our complete printing specifications here. If you need additional information, please feel free to contact us.
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