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DYMO DiscPainter
Setup and Testing
Simplicity is again the word of the day. To set the printer up you need only pop in the installation disc and follow the prompts. Several warnings both on the printer itself and in the software remind you to refrain from plugging in the USB cable until you are instructed to do so. Once you've clicked through the menus and have been given permission to plug in the USB, you're ready to start printing. The included print software, called Discus, allows users to pull up a myriad of pre-loaded brand name CD/DVD label layouts. Discus not only allows for direct CD printing but by insert cards and booklet designs as well. Selecting the DYMO CD label will get you started creating a custom painted disc. There are 3 pages of stock artwork to choose from, most of which fall into the 1980s Hallmark greeting cards realm. But a few images stand out and make for good starting points. Of course, you can also import your own photos and artwork, layer text over the top and draw your way around using an MS Paint style interface. Discus allows for multiple collage-style designs, a fair bit of text decoration, photo manipulation, and even incorporates grid patterns to help you align your layouts. It isn't quite as detailed as Photoshop, as you might expect. But the interface is relatively intuitive and I was on my way to printing my first test CD in less than 10 minutes from the time I pulled the printer from the box. Occasionally I found the software a bit laggy but it never crashed and I was impressed with the level of detail I was able to add. There are work layers in the same vein as Photoshop but on a much more rudimentary level and I didn't like having to use slider bars for nearly every aspect of design. Still, the software does what it is supposed to and with the photo collage options, you shouldn't run out of design choices any time soon. The high resolution printing will allow for small text when adding song titles. You can even import track names from various burning software or MP3 audio tags and export your artwork as a psd/jpg/bmp/tiff file. The included CDs are coated on the top side with a white, glossy printing surface. I popped one in and fired off a pre-loaded design that looked like a bisected Sunkist fruit. The DiscPainter slowly swallowed the CD and began to spin it at low RPM. Two minutes later I was greeted with a CD-sized citrus label that gleamed in glossy orange ink. I then loaded up a saturated TV color pattern .gif to test the Pantone qualities of this little DYMO dynamo . As you can see from the images, the resulting printed CDs are of good quality. However the patented "RadialPrint" technology does occasionally leave concentric rings of ink as the spinning CD prints. I repeated the colorful test pattern only this time I increased the print quality from normal to best and upped the ink density from a mid-grade 5 to the highest setting of 9 (which lays down more ink, but burns through it much faster). The result was increased color saturation but no noticeable decrease in ink rings or increase in resolution (and only 1 extra minute of print time). Pure gray tones did get a bit muddy during printing, most likely due to a lack of true gray scale ink capabilities. That isn't to say that I was disappointed with the results - far from it. In fact the mid-range settings are quite acceptable and approach professional quality printing. Even prints made from photos of varying resolutions turned out looking quite nice (see the car collage and bottle caps labels) although, again, muted grays and drab colors get a bit muddy.            But what if you don't want to let all those adhesive CD labels go to waste? To test the DYMO's printing abilities on lesser quality printing surfaces I stuck a pre-cut matte paper CD label onto a run of the mill CD-R. Again I was impressed with the result (the image of the black silhouette surrounded by color explosions). The DiscPainter had no problems printing on after market paper labels. I actually almost prefer the look on matte paper as the dark blacks had a velvet-like appearance and saturated colors appeared to have more depth.   Unfortunately, I didn't have enough printable CDs to tear through an entire ink cartridge. But I can tell you that printing 7 CDs (2 at the highest settings, the rest at mid-level settings) did knock my fresh ink cartridge down to about 85% ink remaining. I'd think you'd be able to get 50+ CDs printed per cartridge at mid-range quality, depending on the artwork. The DYMO DiscPainter (MSRP $279) is available online for about $250-260. And at just under $40 for one ink cartridge that's approaching a buck per CD print before you've even paid for the printer and CDs. If you're a CD decorating junkie, it could get expensive.
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