Looking for silver/better white hub printable DVD-Rs
 

Hello, I'm new to printing on disc surfaces, as I just make discs for my personal use I've always just used thin adhesive paper cutout with a cricut (yes bad, never had issues though).

Recently I picked up a Epson 8550 which can print direct to disc so gave it a try with some Verbatim DVD-Rs. The print quality itself seems good, however the colors and blacks are very muted and almost grey. The surface of these discs in general is not like the bright white you'd get on a quality paper which I believe has to do with it.

Is this to be expected from inkjet printing, or are there other brands I should be looking at for a higher surface quality?

I also have been looking at silver printable discs, the shine would be useful for some of my projects however I can't seem to find any reputable brand making a hub printable silver DVD-R, is there something readily available out there still or are these becoming more challenging to purchase?

The quality of the media is fairly important, a lot of what I write are fan translations and modified video games and systems like the Playstation 2 are extremely picky about their media.

Thank you!

The so called "Water Shield" discs have a nice surface. These were originally from Tayo-Yuden, recently sold under the CMC Pro label. The WS1 suffix are glossy, the WS2 suffix are matte finish.

PlexDisc offers a Liquid Defense glossy surface.

I mostly use Verbatum DataLifePlus which are a matte surface bu brun wellfor me.

In any case, the Epson PrintCD program (at least the version I use) offers a "Premium Surface" option and a Color Correction adjustment that should put more ink on the disc. (With longer drying time.)

I really love my Epson XP-7100 for printing discs, but I HATE the clogged inkjets after and how much ink I waste cleaning them.

I've found that frequent printing helps reduce clogged nozzles with my Epson inkjets. Letting it sit off without use for a few weeks without use is a sure fire invitation to a clogged nozzle. ( HP's nozzle in the cartridge seems a better model.)

Sadly ink is expensive inn the small cartridge form so I use my Epson R1900t mainly for discs and some important photos on quality paper, and use a color LaserJet for other stuff, including DVD/BD case inserts.

I use Surething software and then bring that image into the Epson software to print.

So I've figured out a couple tricks, one I created a photoshop template which allows me to manipulate colors and print settings unlike the awful epson photo+ software, and actually have correct sizing and resolution.

But also... Printing twice on the same disc...................... It prints colors pretty good and you can change color ink density, but for some reason there is no option to change black density. Cropping black parts of the image in photoshop and then reprinting just that one layer results in deep blacks even on the verbatim discs. Looks really really good actually. I wish they had a tiny bit of a shine to them but I think I'm happy with this!

Thanks for all the advice, and if anyone knows of a setting I'm missing in Epson's drivers to change black density that'd be awesome, if not this works just adds a bit of variable to it.