LightScribe is an optical disc recording technology

Optical disc recording technologies

Optical disc authoring requires a number of different optical disc recorder technologies working in tandem, from the optical disc media to the firmware to the control electronics of the optical disc drive...

 that uses specially coated recordable CD

CD-R

A CD-R is a variation of the Compact Disc invented by Philips and Sony. CD-R is a Write Once Read Many optical medium, though the whole disk does not have to be entirely written in the same session....

 and DVD

DVD recordable

DVD recordable and DVD rewritable refer to part of Optical disc recording technologies. DVD optical disc formats that can be recorded by a DVD recorder, , either write once or rewritable format written by laser, as compared to DVD-ROM, which is mass-produced by pressing, primarily for the...

 media to produce laser

Laser

A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation...

-etched labels with text or graphics, as opposed to stick-on labels and printable discs.

The LightScribe method uses the laser in a way similar to when plain data is written to the disc; a greyscale image of the label is etched onto the upper side of the disc. In the beginning, the discs were available only in a sepia

Sepia (color)

Sepia is a dark brown-grey color, named after the rich brown pigment derived from the ink sac of the common cuttlefish Sepia.The word sepia is the Latinized form of the Greek σηπία, sēpía, cuttlefish.-Sepia in human culture:...

 color but today are available in many colors.

The purpose of LightScribe is to allow users to create direct-to-disc labels (as opposed to stick-on labels), using their optical disc writer.