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crunkthanamug
New member
Anyone know how much it would cost to buy one of those silkscreen cd labelers???
kid klash
The original Mr. Nice Guy
Big, big $$$.
Most people that do casual labeling and aren't in the CD manufacturing business either use stick-on ink-jet-printable labels (like the Neato labels), or ink-jet-printable CDRs (an Epson R-200 inkjet printer that is capable of printing onto CDRs costs less than $100), or, for semi-pro and pro printing without using silkscreen printing, there's the new generation of color heat-transfer printers, that start at around $1500, plus the cost of the color ribbons (which are pretty expensive).
FWIW, the Epson R-200 and R-300 printers do a pretty good job, especially for the money. Some people "clear-coat" their inkjet-printed CDRs (top side only!) to make the colors more vibrant and less likely to become water-damaged.
Most people that do casual labeling and aren't in the CD manufacturing business either use stick-on ink-jet-printable labels (like the Neato labels), or ink-jet-printable CDRs (an Epson R-200 inkjet printer that is capable of printing onto CDRs costs less than $100), or, for semi-pro and pro printing without using silkscreen printing, there's the new generation of color heat-transfer printers, that start at around $1500, plus the cost of the color ribbons (which are pretty expensive).
FWIW, the Epson R-200 and R-300 printers do a pretty good job, especially for the money. Some people "clear-coat" their inkjet-printed CDRs (top side only!) to make the colors more vibrant and less likely to become water-damaged.
dwillis45
Número sesenta nueve
kid klash said:
And that's just for the machine itself. I can't image all the other support equipment you would need--especially for a four color process. If it's at all like traditional screenprinting, you would need to prepare a seperate screen for each color. That means "burning" a photo positive to an emulsion either on the screen or applied to the screen. In the old days, burning used to involve a vacuum frame and a strong UV light source among other things. Then the emulsion or coated screen had to be developed and washed out. The technology may have changed somewhat, but I'm sure it's still fairly intensive.
I would definately look into other methods unless you want to become a printer! For short runs using cd-r disks, I use Mixonic.com. You can design your own disk in photoshop or a similar program and upload the results to their server. They will then print the disk using a high resolution color process. I think it's thermal but it may be high resolution inkjet. At any rate, the disks are waterproof, scratchproof and very durable. The cost is about $4-5 buck per CD with no minimum. They also print on DVD.
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Sleddog72
New member
Professional CD's
recently I inquired about getting professional cd's made for me. Instead of doing it myself...and in total it's going to cost me 300$ for 100 cd's, shrink wrapped, jewel cases, 2 page insert, 1 card tray (high gloss and color) on the actual CD I have my homepage logo, with my name and some other stuff on a silver cd, black white finishing. Basically all they needed to do this was the layout of the page inserts/cover, the cd layout, basically all the graphics you see on a normal albumn, plus the actual music on a cd naturally. I did the graphics in photoshop( i spent 2 weeks doing this i really enjoyed it. best part of making a cd haha). So basically that works out to 3$ a cd. shrink wrapped, professionally done. I think it's cheaper to do it that way than purchase a machine. I dunno...depends if you like doing that stuff and how good you are at it. I prefered the professional approach and im lazy. heh. btw that's canadian dollars...probably like 250$ american for 100 cd's. it can go more expensive depending on packaging, and graphics and all that....but i just did a normal cd album.
cheers hope that helps.
recently I inquired about getting professional cd's made for me. Instead of doing it myself...and in total it's going to cost me 300$ for 100 cd's, shrink wrapped, jewel cases, 2 page insert, 1 card tray (high gloss and color) on the actual CD I have my homepage logo, with my name and some other stuff on a silver cd, black white finishing. Basically all they needed to do this was the layout of the page inserts/cover, the cd layout, basically all the graphics you see on a normal albumn, plus the actual music on a cd naturally. I did the graphics in photoshop( i spent 2 weeks doing this i really enjoyed it. best part of making a cd haha). So basically that works out to 3$ a cd. shrink wrapped, professionally done. I think it's cheaper to do it that way than purchase a machine. I dunno...depends if you like doing that stuff and how good you are at it. I prefered the professional approach and im lazy. heh. btw that's canadian dollars...probably like 250$ american for 100 cd's. it can go more expensive depending on packaging, and graphics and all that....but i just did a normal cd album.
cheers hope that helps.