Do you get any problems with writing? Smearing, marking of the underside of the CD's as they go through the printer?
The only real issue is initial design of a template so that everything falls where you want it to on the CD. Once that's accurately done, printing is a snap. I use a simple FileMaker Pro database into which I enter some information about what's on a given disk. The same database has a layout designed to print its data to a CD/DVD label. I have a Photoshop action that saves a thumbnail of a typical image from a job. That thumbnail goes into the FileMaker database and gets printed onto the label along with info about disk contents and my company logo and contact info.
The base side of the CD/DVD is completely covered as it goes through the printer so I've never had a problem there. The disk rests in a plastic tray about the thickness of a piece of matt board and that's what gets fed through the printer.
Can you load several as you can with paper or is it a careful feed one through at a time with fingers crossed?
These Epson printers do just one disk at a time. An earlier model that I had could feed two disks at once but I don't think I ever even bothered to set up a two label template. In my circumstance I'm usually printing just a couple of disks at once. It's no big deal to feed them one at a time. There are printers out there than can handle stacks of disks if you really need some sort of quantity. For any sort of quantity printing of one label, I'd probably hire the job out to someone that specializes in those things. There are a number of services that can provide that type of work at reasonable prices. I'm interested in printing custom labels to deliver jobs to clients... usually a single disk.
Is the resultant printed surface hard wearing or a tad soft and vulnerable?
Its quite durable and not prone to smearing at all. It may take slightly longer to fully dry than a typical inkjet paper print, but not much. It seems dry to the touch right out of the printer. However on a few occasions I've printed the disk first and then burned it. The spinning disk in the burner can make an interesting pattern on the disk as the not quite dry ink is flung away from the center hole. Looks a little odd but never caused a problem. Just make sure the disk is dry...just a minute or two tops... before putting it into a drive.
Bob Smith
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