i was reading a minute ago and i came across something (this) and in the description i came across something about burning the information to the dvd and then flipping it to burn the label. i want to know how this is possible.

It's just laser etching a grayscale image onto the disk.

linky

is there any software needed to do this?

Both software and hardware is involved. You need a lightscribe drive, lightscribe cds, and a program to use said hardware.

how do i know if my drive is light scribe? (i use a mac)

I think all the new macs come with lightscribe burners.

Here's the software download page.

Here's a problem for you. i just talked to an apple representative. according to them none of the MacBooks have light scribe anymore.

Doesn't it use a kind of ink too?

REDMONKE IS READING THIS WE ARE SAVED

Funky, you'd think if they made them in the past they'd continue it.

What you can buy is printable labels at arts and crafts stores. You put in special paper, and your printer prints it onto the precut disk sized circles. You peel them off and stick them on the disks.

or i could buy an external lightscribe enabled drive to do that work for me. although your idea sounds better for the time being.

Lightscribe is pretty lame to tell you the truth.

how professional would your suggestion look?

Here's some free ones for you to look at. You'd just print those out on the paper.

As long as you're getting non colored CDs (although colored ones could work, but the color may distort the print out pieces) with no text on them, they'll look fine. Plus they're color.

But for my work i'd need custom labels. say for a couple's wedding i'm not going to want something that has nothing to do with their wedding.

You can make them online with custom pictures and text.

That's awesome!!!

Woa, that's what that meant. There's a sticker on my case saying HP Lightscribe Technology, and i just thought it was a fast way of burning stuff or something... how do i do it? I've just been writing on discs with permanent marker

You have to buy custom lightscribe disks, then you have to download/install the lightscribe program (at their website) then I'd assume you'd just follow the directions in the program.

Actually you can just do all of that with Nero. It has a gudhak label printing thingiemabob that works with LightScribe, too.

I have a LightScribe drive and I'm rather content with it - the CDs with LightScribe labels etched look really nifty, though, obviously, it's limited to grayscale.

I also have LightScribe, never used it though, but i have Sonic to write with. (It was with on the computer, VERY handy for making DVDs)

Its basicly a infrared laser burning onto the disc, and means you have to flip the disc for it to make the image.
But it doesnt actually burn either, it just makes a level of infrared laser to tone some chemical on the disc.