Thermal vs. Inkjet PDF

Thermal Printable vs. Inkjet Printable

 

What's the difference between the inkjet printing, thermal retransfer printing and thermal dye sublimation printing?  And which one is best for you?  The following comparisons will help you decide. 

Inkjet Printing:

In inkjet printing, the ink solution is sprayed onto a disc surface that is specially designed to receive, hold and absorb the ink droplets.  The technology produces photographic quality results for sophisticated, multi-color, high-resolution graphics, and images on your DVDs and CDs, the same way as the conventional paper inkjet printer.
 

The main disadvantage of inkjet printable discs are that the discs are more susceptible to smudging, scratching and require time to dry.  Lick your finger and rub an inkjet printed discs, it's going to smudge.  Because the nature of long drying time and the smear of the black ink, we have stopped offering black and grayscale inkjet printing on the discs and all the grayscale printing is done with thermal retransfer printing.

In short, if you are looking to print full color , full face images on the disc and you don't expect to print large volumes, and the discs are for demo purpose, then inkjet printing could be the right choice for you.

The inkjet printing is also the default choice for the "Text and Logo" print option.

 
Thermal Retransfer Printing:

The CMYK panels are first printed to a clear retransfer ribbon inside the printer.  Then, using heat and pressure, the printed image and a layer of the clear ribbon are applied to the disc.  The finished product emerges dry and durable. As soon as the discs come out of the printer, it is ready to handle.  No stickiness or smearing here.  Thermal ribbons cost more than inkjet cartridges and requires special thermal printable discs hence the higher cost. The print surface of the thermal printed discs are UV, Scratch and Moist Resistant.  Thermal printed discs do not smudge like inkjet printed discs and will always look a little shiny. The print on the disc will be permanent.

Dye Sublimation Printing:

 And finally there is the latest technology for the direct to disc printing. Edithouse is proud to offer the best quality printing available for the short run disc on body printing. The Dye Sublimation printing results photo-realistic prints unmatchable by any competitor! The resolution of the prints are 400 DPI or 290 LPI and the discs are UV, scratch and moist resistant and retail grade.

We hope that this information will help you to understand the differences in the processes and you will be able to make the right choice for your project.

If you are still unsure, what type of printing do you need, we welcome you to arrange by email or by phone to see some of the samples in our studio or please request a sample by post.

 

 
Sharp Edge Media