Well, I've been "fooling" with them for over five years and have been extremely happy with them.

I disagree, they produce awesome looking prints that rival any quality glossy photo paper. Have you seen them first hand or is it just an opinion? Taiyo-Yuden WaterShield white glossy DVD discs?

Just the opposite for me.

Yes, WaterShield discs do cost more, but I'm a videographer who shoots youth theater and sells the DVDs complete with case insert and booklet inside the case. I want a more professional look than matte labels applied to the disc. For personal use discs, I use Verbatim 95079 white printable discs.

I use a PhotoShop template to create the disc image - save as a jpeg file, then use Canon's CD-LabelPrint software to print the discs. Very easy and nothing to apply. I would argue that the WaterShield discs look a whole lot better than an applied label.

My trouble is that, while the print quality is excellent on the WaterShield discs, the color varies slightly from the HP Glossy Brochure Paper I use. I keep playing with the manual color settings in the Canon printer settings until I get it "close enough". In the process I waste 5 or more discs.

For argument's sake and assuming the print quality is a ton better than you think, will I be able to get a decent profile from PP given the discs physical size and shape?


As I mentioned, I sell the DVDs I produce to the families of the youth theater so I am very fussy. It's not very professional if the colors vary. I print the same artwork (high quality PhotoShop files - nothing downloaded) on the case insert and disc face so I want them to match as close as possible. If it were for home use as you do for your neighbors, then it wouldn't be such a big deal.

Well, I admit that I don't pay a lot for the printable CD's I tried: I was trying to keep costs reasonable and even then, they are much more than a label + regular CD.  I don't know what you are using to print, but for me they were incredibly inefficient too.  I do them in bulk of maybe 4+ at a time and found it much more efficient to print 4 labels and then apply those than having to babysit the printer one disc at a time.  You are aware, aren't you, that there are some very good quality glossy labels out there?  I really doubt that it's impossible to find glossy labels that compare to the printable surface of your discs.

All that aside, Ray's idea might work.  Pick a paper that prints similar and with similar driver settings.  Profile that and then use the PP tweaker to make changes to the profile until it matches by printing samples on the discs.  Might cost you a half dozen or so discs but once you're done, you'd have a working profile.

Mike

I have no plans to make a round target and I just don't see that being a good use of my time.  That's a significant feature to implement when you and maybe one other person will ever use it.  Let's face it, you are talking about color managing an object that, when in use, you can't even see!  You glance at it for a half second to ID the disc and then put it in the drive.  Are people really taking these things and hanging them as ornaments where they'll be displayed?  Not trying to be a smarty pants: just being realistic and I don't think making round targets is a good business decision.

Mike

If you had the time or incentive to do so, I reckon you may succeed in distorting the target image before physically printing it - (not an ideal method, but maybe print to pdf, instead of to your canon printer, then load the image into your image editor, make it circular with the hole in the middle, then print that image to your cd). You'll possibly get colour shifts and other problems in the distortion process. Once you scan in that image, distort it in reverse to get it back to the required rectangular image before running it through the rest of the pp software. Fancy writing a script or action   ?

There may be software 'out there' for doing the first transform because there was a sort of popular Victorian? gimmick using similar circular images, which only became understandable when you viewed them in the reflection of a circular mirror (glass bottle) stood in the centre of the image.

(If it were for an hp printer, I know of someone who would probably write the scripts in the blink of an eye   )

Best wishes,

Ray

edited typo to pdf

There are actually a bunch of ways it could be done.  The warp/unwarp is theoretically possible.  You could also chop the target into say 12 chunks that would be about 1x1.8 inches each (4x3 chop of the target).  Then you could print four of those on each disc for a total of three discs.  Scan all three discs at once and then piece the 12 chunks together digitally to make the full target.  Just make sure you don't mix up any of the chunks.    In fact, you could do it pretty easily with Qimage, telling it to print a 4x3 poster of the target from 1x1.87 inch pages and then printing that to file: you'd get 12 files all chunked up for you.  Then just print those 4 at a time on the discs and piece them together from the scans.

Mike

Continuing the conversation....

I've been a customer for a while now and tried to chunk up a DVD (again, a while back) but didn't have much success. It's most likely because I didn't have access to a good scanner.

Now that I've recently retired my Canon iP4500 and just bought a Canon MX922 and have also recently switched from JVC Watershield DVDs to FalconMedia SmartGuard Glossy DVDs, I'm back to see if anything has changed with regard to providing a target for DVDs.

With more printers having the capability to print on CD/DVDs, is there any chance you would reconsider your position of not making a round target? It's been a few years now that Canon has been able to provide direct to CD/DVD printers in the US similar to what Epson has been doing for years.

As the MX922 has a scanner and probably better software than what I had before, I'll have to give your suggestion a try: ...print a 4x3 poster of the target from 1x1.87 inch pages and then printing that to file: you'd get 12 files all chunked up for you.  Then just print those 4 at a time on the discs and piece them together from the scans.


At any rate, I'm bringing this topic to the top for consideration. Thanks.