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Carmen
28th November 2011, 01:19 PM
I got one of these lightscribe drives for Christmas a year ago as I wanted something to make the CD's I burned look more professional.

http://www.lightscribe.co.uk/

It's basically an external CD/DVD writer (you can get internal ones as well and they come as standard in some PC's) that can burn standard discs but uses Lightscribe media which it can burn patterns into the label face of Lightscribe discs, saving you the risk of using labels. (The alternative of course is to use a printer than can print on the faces of printable discs but we don't have that facility on our printer).

The drive came with software to design your labels. You can add photos text and logos and then preview the image. You can download more designs from the website.

The burning process for the image takes around 20 minutes. The burned label is obviously only black and white but you can get different coloured Lightscribe discs to make them look a bit different.

I was initially worried that the lightscribe media would be expensive but shopping online shows there's several suppliers that have them at prices similar to normal CD/DVD media. The other good thing of course is there's no ink consumable to spend out on or chances of smudging the image.

It's a good gadget and I'm loving the professional looking results.

Kae
28th November 2011, 02:23 PM
Also, you can run the "printing" more than once. The software will automatically align the disk each time (using the small holographic ring near the centre) so you can make it darker than you can achieve with one pass.

You can also buy different coloured disks, but the image itself will be grayscale only.

Carmen
28th November 2011, 03:17 PM
Also, you can run the "printing" more than once. The software will automatically align the disk each time (using the small holographic ring near the centre) so you can make it darker than you can achieve with one pass.

You can also buy different coloured disks, but the image itself will be grayscale only.

Yes I've done the trick of burning twice and it does darken the image, but you can also change the settings to make it a bit darker on first pass as well, it does take a bit longer to burn. I think it looks great - very pro!

paulmag
28th November 2011, 03:49 PM
Does the job I have one but as I only do discs for myself was easier to use a sharpie :)

Roger S
28th November 2011, 04:00 PM
My only fear was the reviews that claimed burning the images was so intense and lengthy, that the laser head would wear out before it's time.

Carmen
28th November 2011, 04:11 PM
Hmm there is that aspect I suppose but I use mine very infrequently.

paulharris
28th November 2011, 04:22 PM
Had this for about 3 years now Carmen a very handy tool.

MickT
7th December 2011, 02:03 PM
Also, you can run the "printing" more than once. The software will automatically align the disk each time (using the small holographic ring near the centre) so you can make it darker than you can achieve with one pass

Been using these for ages - but still didn't know that...you live and learn :) Cheers, Mick.