With the development of electronic publishing, CD-ROMs, with their advantages of large capacity, high safety performance, and portability, have gradually taken people's lives by adopting a new information medium. The beautiful disc design and its packaging will significantly enhance the value of the disc itself, such as corporate logos, advertisements, or an introduction to the contents of the disc itself. And for individuals or companies, self-made CD covers and their outer packaging can fully display the personality, personal or corporate image, follow the fashion trend, get the maximum visual bonus points and collection value, and finally bid farewell to the era of CD cover stickers.

The author has done some research and summary on the types of CD printing, specifications, packaging materials, market prices and other aspects, the following to introduce.

First, disc printing

1. Disc printing classification. Through high-speed screen printing or offset printing, pictures can be printed on the paint layer of the disc. The reprint of the picture can reach eight colors, but the effect depends on the printer's ability to print labels.

Screen printing is most commonly used in the printing of optical discs, and its scope of application is a small number of optical discs (usually less than one thousand sheets). Screen printing is the conversion of a picture into a network of Zhang Youying L. The ink is attached to the disc surface of the optical disc through a net. This process is similar to wax paper printing. The main printing process is shown in (Figure 2).

Customers can use offset printing if they have strict requirements on the surface of a particular optical disc or have high-volume requirements. Offset printing uses ink rollers and printing stations to convert images. This method is widely used in traditional commercial printing and is now also used for the printing of optical disc labels. Offset printing can achieve higher quality resolution when performing image reprints. It is superior to screen printing where it can print enhanced four-color images and other complex graphics.

With the popularity of digital imaging products, many people have begun to produce their own DIY digital albums and DVDs. Bring the cover of the CD to a special merchant for printing. The price is relatively high. The purchase of a dedicated disc screen printer is only for home use, and the price/performance ratio is too low. So for personal consumption, you can buy a CD cover printer for CD printing. The most popular CD cover printers currently on the market are EPsON, CANON, CASIO, and PRIMERA in the United States and EXPERT in Japan.

2. Disc printing specifications and market prices. Disc printing specifications are generally: l2mm market, outer diameter ≤ ll 8mm, inner diameter ≥ 20mm; 8mmd ~ disc, outer diameter ≤ 78mm, inner diameter ≥ 20mm. Offset printing and silk screen printing are two basic methods for CD or DVD disc printing. However, there are many differences in specifications between these two methods.

CD screen printing generally requires that the film is a positive image, the film surface upward; size is about 160mm × 160mm ~ l80mm × l80mm; the original film can not be folded, no small scratches L or scratch; each film should be marked on the color Code; supports the standard PANTONG color, the line number is 85 to 1001pi, non-standard color is obtained by the mixed color, but there is chromatic aberration; supports any printing sample.

CD offset printing generally requires the film to be negative; the size is almost the same as the silk screen; the resolution of the requested image file is not less than 300 dps, the image file center must have an alignment crosshair, and the inner and outer circles must be concentric; the color specification is CMYK, the lowest 300dpi; All text should be converted to vector. Acceptable MAC version mapping software is generally: Photoshop5.0, Quark3.3/4.0. Illustrator8.0; acceptable PC version of the drawing software is generally: Illustrator8.0, Photoshop5.0, CorelDraw8.0/9.0Since screen printing and offset printing specifications are largely different, customers need to provide printing on the disk. This is not a computer print. This will enable the printing engineer to follow the color correctly. This is because printing samples and disk surface printing are also based on the CMYK color system, and the computer-printed color inkjet samples are based on the mechanism of the RGB color system. Therefore, computer-printed color inkjet samples do not provide the correct color-tracking reference for optical disc printing. Since the disc pattern will be printed on the silver substrate of the disc, although this will constitute a special artistic effect under certain conditions, it is still recommended that customers use the white background to get the desired effect, and the white background is considered to be added. The same color.

At present, there are more manufacturers engaged in optical disc printing in the mainland market. After a long period of market research, the author organized the approximate price of silk screen printing as follows (as shown in Table 1). As the difference between the raw material of the offset printing on the disc is relatively large, the market price is significantly different, so the author does not list it here.

Second, disc packaging

After the disc surface is printed, it is necessary to automatically or manually pack the optical disc so that the safety of the optical disc can be ensured to the maximum extent and its beautiful appearance can be fully expressed.

1. The type of disc package. There are many packaging methods that are currently available in the market and are used in applications. Because plastic boxes are rugged and fully automated production lines are popular, plastic boxes are the most commonly used packaging method for optical disks.

Other commonly used packaging methods (some of which may require manual operations) include: (1) lightweight packaging such as Tyvek and cardboard sleeves; (2) transparent plastic sleeves such as ViewPaks; (3) boxes of environmentally friendly cardboard textures , such as Digipaks's Ecopaks and others. The following (Figure 3) shows some of the popular methods of disc packaging currently on the market. Some high-end disc packaging methods are shown, some of which are shown in industry standard PS material disc packaging.

2. Disc package hardware specifications. In general, there is no fixed requirement for the hardware package of the optical disk. The industry-standard Jewel box is widely used in the industry today. Its outer packaging is generally a jewel box, a wrapper, and a wrapper. Superscripts and subscripts are attached to the wrapper, and shrinkage and tearing tapes are provided on the wrapper.

3. The market price of disc packaging. The outsourcing cost of the optical disc includes three parts: the cost of the back cover of the cartridge cover, the cost of the outer packaging box, and the design cost. Due to the wide variety of packaging materials currently on the disc packaging market, there is no uniform measure for the packaging price. For this kind of work, readers who have yet to be interested in continue to study.

Third, the conclusion

Through the above process, an optical disc can be put into the market for sale. However, it is worth noting that, in the production process, every aspect of production should have strict control over quality in order to ensure compliance with industrial production specifications. In this way, it can be ensured that the errors of all discs are within acceptable differences, that is, they are controlled within the allowable range of all disc drives. â– 

Author: Sun Yanhua Shuzan

Reprinted from: Printed in China