Thermal printing is a popular printing method for short run CD duplication and DVD duplication. As in all printing methods there are certain limitations, if they can be avoided you can make sure to get the best possible print quality.

Tips for thermal on-disc printing:

1. Gradient effect: although it may look good on offset printing, gradient on thermal sometimes results color changes that are not smooth.
2. Thin lines: avoid lines that are thinner than 0.3 pt, the result is pixelated lines with uneven colors.
3. Small fonts: keep all fonts, even the small copyright copy to at least 5 pt. Text that is too small will be hard to read and look pixelated.
4. Grays and Blacks: avoid designs containing only grays and blacks. Distinctive and contrasting colors can achieve vibrant and pleasing results.
5. No Pantone allowed: thermal printing is a 4-color process, if your design contains any Pantone spot colors it will be converted to CMYK. However the colors will never be the same as the Pantone.
6. Full color images: high-resolution photographic images is the best way to showcase the photo-listic feature of thermal printing, a combination of images, solids and text achieve great results