Now there’s a title for you. I’m jotting this down here because 1) someone other than me might actually find it useful and 2) I know I’ll need the information again. I looked for the information before resorting to trial and error and couldn’t find it.
Our old Epson Stylus Photo R300 does a great job of printing directly on CDs and DVDs. The software that came with it, however, is on an old machine…while I’ve upgraded computers the R300 remains in service.
Photoshop Elements has design templates for printing on CD/DVDs though the actual printing has proven to be tricky. I’ve gone through over a dozen paper DVDs (taped in the tray) trying to get the printer settings right. I only ruined one actual DVD doing this…that’s pretty good for me. I’ve had to clean a lot of stray ink from the printer tray and the rollers inside of the printer as a result of my experimentation.
I don’t know that these settings are 100% perfect but they’re good enough.
In the Print dialog, under Position, set Top to 0.17 inches and Left to 0.47 inches. The Center Image checkbox has to be cleared to change the numbers. Here’s an image just so it’s clear:
- Settings for printing a CD or DVD on an Epson Photo Stylus R300 using Photoshop Elements. (click to enlarge)
When I reopen the print dialog I see that the numbers I entered have changed. I first thought that’s because the printer driver rounded my values to the closest the printer could support. If I leave those numbers in place they change again, so I just re-enter the values each time.
And now with that out of the way, I can go back and finish the Christmas gift for my siblings. For last Christmas.