There are number of good CD/DVD label designers on the market, but the $22 Acoustica CD/DVD Label Maker is a cut above in terms of flexibility, learning curve, and ease of use. Everything you need is either right in front of you or available via right-click context menus. It also supports any number of different jewel cases, inserts, and labels.

The only thing I missed was the ability to design disc sleeves (although it does print sleeve labels), which are what I've switched to from jewel cases to save space. You can of course futz this by inserting a white circle into the layout to cover where the window area of the sleeve will be, but that's hardly optimal.

I liked some of Acoustica CD/DVD Label Maker's bundled artwork, but much it was rather run-of-the-mill. Buying the program, however, gets you access to a lot more content that you can download free of charge. There's also some pay-per-pack content which, as you might guess, is bit more professional in appearance. However, more artistic users can skip the downloads altogether, as CD/DVD Label Maker lets import your own artwork.

CD/DVD Label maker worked perfectly in my tests. I especially liked the direct import of iTunes playlists for printing and the support for Lightscribe. Other than the lack of a template for sleeves, Acoustica CD/DVD Label Printer is a top-notch labeling design tool.

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