Designing for Disc Printing

Acutrack Disc Templates Our disc templates are designed based on our specific printing specifications and capabilities. We cannot use templates from other printers, and will have to re-design your artwork to our specs (for a small fee) if our templates are not used. Image Resolution We recommend using images that are 300ppi. You can go lower than this but you may be unhappy with the results. Images downloaded from the web are only 72 ppi, and although you can resample them to 300ppi in photoshop you are not actually increasing the resolution, you're just turning a small, low resolution image into a large, low resolution image. Spot Color Inks vs. CMYK Printing Spot colors are solid color inks that are mixed in one bucket, as opposed to combining 4-colors (CMYK) to try and get the effect of a single color. Using spot colors is much more predictable and sometimes cheaper than CMYK printing as long as the design allows for it. If your design has 4-color images and spot colors are not an option, please consider our High Definition Digital Printing (HDDP). Mirror Band The mirror band is a small, reflective ring that runs around the inner portion of CD's and DVD's. This band should be taken into consideration when designing artwork. Text that knocks out of your artwork onto the mirror band may be difficult to read. Similarly, positive text that prints directly on the silver disc and runs across the mirror band can be difficult to read as well. Clear Inner Hub The clear inner hub is the area inside the mirror band that doesn't contain the CD substrate, hence it's clear! Depending on the media being used, this area is printable but you should expect some color changes in your inks because of lack of reflective material in this area. This color change is dramatic if a white flood is not used. White Flood or No White Flood We provide a white flood at no extra charge to you. However, using the metallic substrate as a design element can create some interesting effects, provided you take into account the mirror band and the clear inner hub. Also, inks tend to become less opaque and their color is less predictable when printed directly onto the CD without a white flood, so remember to take that into account as well.

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