Example of 4-color process silkscreen with a white background. Photographic images are color-separated into 4 colors - cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. These colors are recombined on the printing press to simulate the original image.

Here you can see a close-up view of 120 line-screen printing. The image is a bit coarse and interference patterns from the screens appear in some areas. Those interference patterns are called moiré (pronounced mwar-ray) patterns. Moiré is always worse on CD labels because the ink is more opaque and due to the lower line screen.

Note that the copyright line above is knocked out of black ink only. Knocking tiny text out of a 4-color picture is a very bad idea because of the low line screen (133 lines per inch) and due to the inherently bad register (alignment) in the silkscreen process. See below for a close-up view of a 4 color knockout:

This is actually very good register for silkscreen.

As of 2011 our standard linescreen is now 133 lines per inch. Our crack silkscreening team always does the best possible job.

Offset-Printed Disc Labels

For demanding photo quality printing we will generally upgrade your job to offset printing at no extra cost!