A Guide to Optical Disc Printing

Font and Film Guide
1) Never create text from halftone dots.
2) For best results, text should always be left as vector art preparing for final film output.
3) Reversed text should be 5pts or larger.
4) Positive text should be 5pts or larger.
5) It’s never a good practice to select text with serifs, or type with inconsistent character widths.
For example, “Script” fonts will print with these concerns. San Serif fonts (block type) are easier to
read and will print consistently cleaner.
6) When requesting 133-line screen it is recommended to compress the tonal ranges to ensure that
all elements are printed from the film.
A suggested 133-line screen compression would be in the range of 8% to 85%.
7) Thumbnail pictures should always be printed with 133-line screen.
8) Art elements should be trapped at .144pts
9) When designing Art files avoid creating Pantone colors from the CMYK formats. Pantone colors
will be much more reliable and repeatable.
10) Vector files offer more flexibility for changes. (if needed) Rastor files are static and not changeable.
11) Include all fonts, and linked files with your art work submission.
12) Insure that all Raster images are submitted at a minimum of 300ppi.

Gradient Guide
13) Avoid gradients with steep transitions.
14) Artwork with small independent pieces should not contain gradients within. Harsh transitions will
occur and be undesirable.
15) Gradients created with highlight dots will have a smoother transition.
16) Film produced on Postscript II imaging technology have a greater chance of banding (tonal jump
during transitions) Choose
Postscript III imaging technology for your film out put.
17) Gradients will have smoother transitions at 133 line screen.

Inks and Color Theory
18) Over lapping of colors should be avoided except during trapping. Conventional UV Inks have varying
levels of opacity. Black is one exception when used last.
19) Understanding UV Ink opacity is important in designing the art elements. Colors listed from the most
Opaque to the least: Black, white, true metallic, and inks with formulas that have heavy percentages of fluorescence.
Mono pigmented base colors are naturally translucent and show very little characteristics of being opaque. (red,
blue, orange, green, yellow) Higher concentrations of a opaque ingredients in a formula will assist in increasing the
opacity. Success on this will vary.
20) Art designs with one color that is dominant will affect the perception of color accuracy of a much smaller art element.
21) Art images printed with a screened percentage will appear lighter than the actual color when matched to the Pantone
book. EX: PMS 186 (Red) printed at a 10% screen will appear to be almost pink. 90% of what the eye sees is the
silver color of the optical disc.
22) A change in the substrate color will change the visual perception of the color itself. Printing white under
process CMYK will give the print a bolder, deeper color effect. Printing a Pantone color edge to edge, and then
printing over the first color with color another Pantone color will affect the second color. Printing with UV inks
of any kind over a different color of Optical disc will change your final color perception. (gold
metallic or colored plastic)
23) Darker colors as a general guide should be printed last.
24) Printing an edge to edge disc, or high percentage of coverage with transparent four-color process inks
(CMYK) creates additional printing challenges that could delay processing. CMYK inks are designed to
print dots and allow the ink to mold, almost freeze into place. The rheology (ink characteristics) of these
ink are not designed to flow, and will never have that highly desirable smooth coverage that spot coverage
inks are designed for.
25) Traditional proofing systems are designed for offset printing and are marginally accurate when used
with screen printing as a tool. For critical larger orders an art check disc is recommended, as it is the most
accurate form of proofing.
26) When color matches are critical please specify which light source that you will be viewing the disc under.
Specify either D6500, incandescent, or cool White florescent. Each color will change under each of these different
light sources. The more details that can be provided, the easier the color match.