Thermal Printing or Inkjet printing?
A thermal CD printer uses pressure and heat to apply text and graphics to the CD-R printable surface. The resulting print is waterproof and scratchproof and does not require any additional coating. The major limitation of a thermal print is it’s inability to adequately produce photographic images. A thermal print should only be used for simple text and graphics.
A thermal CD printer uses pressure and heat to apply text and graphics to the CD-R printable surface. The resulting print is waterproof and scratchproof and does not require any additional coating. The major limitation of a thermal print is it’s inability to adequately produce photographic images. A thermal print should only be used for simple text and graphics. An inkjet CD printer works very much like a regular paper inkjet printer. The ink is sprayed from nozzles onto the inkjet printable CD-R surface. After printing, the CDs are coated with a lacquer or laminate to ensure the CDs are highly water and scratch proof. The print quality is superb. In fact, the vibrancy and detail of an inkjet print can only be matched by an offset print (not even a screen print comes close!) Photographic images, text, logos and other graphics are all rendered superbly. The main drawbacks of an inkjet print are the inability to produce Pantone colours, some degree of difficulty to precisely colour match
