I just bought the Epson Stylus Photo R300 printer specifically for the CD/DVD printing feature. I bought some Memorex printable CDs (although I mostly will be doing DVD printing.) I tried printing several discs and they looked great. However, I wet my finger and tried to smudge it and the ink came right off. Does anyone else have this printer or can anyone recommend different media to buy that won't do this? However, they do recommend letting the ink dry for 24 hours first, but I doubt if it will be better.

Ok...I guess no one has this printer....Has anyone had any trouble with smudges on printable media done with other printers? If so, did you find anyways to remedy that? My roommate tried to run the CD under water....and took off most of the ink, but there was a layer left (although a very faint one.) The problem seems to be that there is too much ink going onto the disc, however, I can't find a setting that will lessen the ink....I am guessing I need to try different types of printable CDs/DVDs...What is the best printable media out there?

I have a question about those "printable" cds... The printable face, is it glossy or matte?

If it's glossy, then perhaps they only expect them to be printed on with a special kind of permanent ink.

A common trick in Epson printers to use less ink is to fake the paper type like say the paper type is "Plain" or "Heavyweight Matte" when you actually printing on a CD. I would also suggest actually waiting 24 hours- you will be suprised how much dryer the ink will get. I believe the R300 is a pigment-based inkjet printer so it does not dry as fast as a dye-based- but when it does the ink will be on much more permanetly.

They are a matte surface...I just tried one that I printed around 30 hours ago and it still smudged really easily...

At a party a while ago, I had a conversation with a guy from HP's printer division. As it turns out, these guys profile the snot out of their own papers. HP knows, for HP-brand paper, precisely how much ink it can absorb and how fast. The more expensive papers are more expensive precisely because they can handle more ink. (Modern ink jet "photo" paper has a fancy clay surface.) When you print to something that's not HP-brand paper (or, in your case, not Epson-brand paper), then the driver has to guess. You could try all the different settings, ranging from "plain paper" onward to see how well they work. You could also try letting the ink dry, perhaps overnight, to see if that makes a difference.

To some extent, any ink-based system is going to be smudgeable. The only "real" solution is to print with something else, like toner or silk screening or perhaps to find some kind of spray-on preservative layer.

*edit*
oops, didn't see your post about the 30 hour disc. That's too bad. But I will say that we warned you that inkjet prints would most likely smudge, regardless of whether the media was "printable" or not. Sure, if it were regular media, the ink wouldn't hold at all. But this media holds some, and I think that's the most you can hope for, but it would be more than that faint layer you described.

Your only recourse will likely be as these people suggest, to find a way to print with less ink. Maybe call up Epson and see what suggestions they have?

find a way to print with less ink

You can just use lighter colors. Rather than black, try 50% grey and see how well that works. Actually, I'd try printing a gradient from 100% black to 100% white, maybe 10 strips. One one side, make it a solid block of the grey. On the other side, print some text in that same shade. Let it dry for a day or two and see which parts are more likely to smudge.

is there a certain order in the colors that print? It seems the main color that comes off is blue.

Typical ink jet printers have four ink colors: cyan (bluish), magenta, yellow, and black. "Photo" ink jet printers might have two or more additional colors. The inks are generally all deposited at the same time, but it's entirely possible that different inks are absorbed at different rates by the surface of your CDs.

If you want to know for sure, you can do the aforementioned test strips, but do several experiments. One with black, and one with each of the other ink colors. At the end, you may conclude that you can handle 50% black but only 20% cyan. That will severely limit the colors you can put onto the final CD, but at least you'll know for certain. (You may find it helpful to use Photoshop in CMYK mode rather than RGB mode, so you can make your test strips more easily.)

I have the R300 and haven't noticed a problem, then again I haven't tried licking my finger and trying to smudge it ... I know it might be a pain, but maybe after you print it and it dries lay it out on a piece of paper and hit it with some fixative (I think thats what it's called) used to use it in art school, on our pencil drawings. I know it seems like a pain, but the stuff dries in minutes. If I remember we also used to use aqua net hairspray as well (when we were out of fixative).

Hummm seeing most of epsons inks are water proof once they set (you can go to most stores and see a epson photo in a jar of water I would guess the CD media you pruchased is NOT for ink jet printing, there are 2 kinds of direct printable cd's Thermo and inkjet

Did you purchase thermo by mistake ?

I personal use the much cheaper epson photo stylus 960 and don't have this problem.

click here for more info

http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20040127/index.html

And so it dies.... after a 2 month period it simply won't print DVD's anymore. It gives me a tray load error and spits it out, every fricking time. It still prints regular paper fine. But it simply won't print CD's. I noticed the problem getting progressively worse however I didn't think anything about it til now.

Any ideas?

DOH!! Nevermind... uh nothing to see here....

I would just like to tell the owners of these printers to remember to leave at least 3 inches of clearance behind your printers. If your CD tray doesn't have enough room to fully load it gives you disk errors and makes you think your printer is broken.

there are 2 kinds of direct printable cd's Thermo and inkjet

I'm not sure what you mean. Thermal printers can print on pretty much everything. At the very least, discs that are printable by thermal printers are not labeled as "printable." If that were the case, then the couple hundred DVDs I've printed on that were not listed as "printable" would not have labels on them anymore.