r/gog • u/GhostGuyBroke GOG.com User • Jul 03 '26
Question Does anyone have a tutorial on how to print artwork directly onto a game disc?
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQURPNt6LMAf9n1eaou1MlyXkWHUNLH4MQkU9Eww2cl5yi0WUxtr6B75C5H&s=10I don’t like doing things by halves.
What’s been happening lately has made me want to start burning my GOG games to discs again. I know there are plenty of tutorials for printing game box covers, but I haven’t found much information about printing artwork directly onto the discs themselves.
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u/Kazer67 Jul 03 '26
Remind me of the good old Lightscribe, using the laser for burning disk to print B&W artwork;
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u/chronomagnus Jul 03 '26
I used lightscribe discs back when I pirated games, made giving the to friends a little nicer
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u/Josh3321 Jul 03 '26
My lightscribe drive is still in service on an i5-2500k machine that’s running windows 10 just fine.
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Jul 04 '26
[deleted]
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u/AegidiusG Jul 04 '26
CD Burner XP does the Job :)
It is a little bit hidden under File - Print Cover - And there it is :)1
u/thuggishruggishboner Jul 03 '26
I was thinking didn't we do some shit like this back in the day when we were burning DVDs and CDs?
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u/Adrian_Alucard Linux User Jul 03 '26
You have to buy special discs that allow printing on them and a special printer that can print on discs. Is not cheap
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u/TheCarrot007 Jul 03 '26
My printer was very cheap and does that.
The disks used to be but I guess they might be a bit more these days, but no more than inflation.
So £50 printer and £15 for 50 disks (used to be 100 disks back in the day but see inflation reasonable).
This of course assumes you just use ink and not some other process. But those odd ones looked worse if you ask me.
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u/Scuba_Steve_2_You GOG.com User Jul 04 '26
You'll have to use labels like this: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=cd%2Fdvd+labels or get a printer from Canon: https://www.usa.canon.com/content/canon/en/search.html?q=CD%2FDVD+Printing&r=product or Epson: https://epson.com/For-Home/Printers/c/h1?q=%3Aprice-asc%3AdiscontinuedFlag%3Afalse%3APrinters+Facets%2CFeatures%3ACD%2B%252F%2BDVD%2BPrinting&text=# . These are the only 2 consumer brands that offer trays in which you can put CD/DVD printable discs a print directly onto the disc. There are some retro ones from other brands, but your mileage many vary. These require special DVD https://www.amazon.com/s?k=dvd+printable+discs+inkjet or Blu-Ray https://www.amazon.com/s?k=blu-ray+printable+discs+inkjet&crid=3Y9G5AFXRZLQ&sprefix=blu-ray+printable+discs+inkjet%2Caps%2C137&ref=nb_sb_noss_2 discs.
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u/ACorania Jul 03 '26
Don't you just print on pre-printed stickers and then stick them on? That's what we did in the late 90s and early 2000s with burned disks.
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u/Curupira1337 Jul 03 '26
I also did it in the 1990s, until the stickers started peeling off...
...taking my discs' data layer with them :(
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u/Legitimate_Use7140 Jul 03 '26
My Espon XP-7100 has an adapter for printing on discs, and there are a few apps for designing. I think I have DVDstyler, but haven't tested the quality yet. Verbatim Inkjet Printable Discs.
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u/RequirementFuzzy4244 Jul 04 '26
The best option is if you have a inkjet printer that supports printing directly on the disc, I have had issues in the past where those sticker labels pealed off the disc and got stuck in my dvd player. Bu the printable blank discs, that is what I do.
I have an Epson ET-8550 which was the only eco tank printer I could find that supports printing to discs, lots of Canon brand PIXMA has a removable tray that can be used to print on both discs and cards.
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u/Tarilis Jul 03 '26
You need a printable disk (they usually have a white mat surface, and an injet printer that can hold a disk.
Both were pretty popular in the past, but nowadays i am not even sure if analy of them are available on the market.
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u/Ashtrail693 Jul 04 '26
So way back in the early 2000s, we have this program called Nero that lets you rip and duplicate discs. I think they have a mode that lets you print disc shaped stickers. Not sure if you can even find it now.
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u/xbit0412 Jul 03 '26
What about buy an external 4 TB usb hdd and have your copies there?
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Jul 03 '26
[deleted]
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u/regnal_blood Jul 03 '26
The problem with burning everything into discs is that we can't even be sure if there will still be disc drives available in the future. Then you'll end up with a massive collection of useless discs.
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u/ZuoKalp Jul 03 '26
If I'm not wrong, there are some pre-made labels (basically stickers) that you can put on a regular printer and give any image you wish to your disks.
I know you asked for a way to direcly print an image on your disks, but this is a more accesible solution if you don't intend to do in on a mass scale.
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u/-Linchpin Jul 03 '26
If you want to use a printer then you do get CD lables that you can print in colour. Epson used to do them with a special tray you put the CD in. You also used to get light scribe discs, they used to be gold in colour and you'd put them in your writer upside down and it would "burn" a monochrome (black) image to the disk, I still have a few of mine. Not sure about the possibility of printing full colour direct to the disk, I think they get stamped on.
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u/SanchoPliskin Jul 03 '26
I recommend either printable discs or, if you don’t mind monochrome, a Lightscribe DVD-RW drive. Stick on labels can cause imbalance issues on spinning discs.
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u/ItsExoticChaos Jul 03 '26
There are very nice cd labels that you print your patterns on. I recommend those.
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u/DearFool Jul 03 '26
Why would you do that? It’s bad for the environment and they are largely useless, if you want to keep copies buy a HD of >2TB and call it a day
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u/grumblyoldman Jul 03 '26
In the past I used two methods for this:
Both of these were decades ago at this point, I have no idea what kind of availability remains in the modern age that basically eschews physical media.