LS Label Studio

Design and burn LightScribe disc labels on modern 64-bit Linux and Windows.
Deutsch · Download · How it was built

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LightScribe drives can burn a grayscale image onto the top side of special discs. The official software was discontinued long ago. On Linux it only exists as a 32-bit library, and current systems no longer support it well.

LS Label Studio is a new, native 64-bit implementation. It talks to the drive directly and reproduces the image processing of the original engine, so labels look the same as with the original Windows software. Burn time is the same as well: about 27 minutes for a full disc.

Features

• Image: open PNG/JPG/BMP/WebP/TIFF, then zoom, rotate, move, and adjust brightness, contrast and midtones. A live disc preview shows the result.
• Text: up to three lines, each curved along the top or bottom of the disc or straight, with your choice of font, size, bold and white.
• Modes: full disc, or ring only (for example just a title), which is much faster.
• Quality: Standard (1015 tracks/inch, recommended), Fast (760) or Fine (1398).
• Exact dot preview: shows how the laser marks will be distributed before you burn.
• Clean cancel: tracks already sent are finished, then the drive stops properly.
• Languages: English and German.
• Linux: burn without root after installation (cap_sys_rawio).
• Windows: a single .exe (runs as administrator for direct drive access).
• Command line tool ls64 for scripting.

Download

See the latest release:

System	File
Windows 10/11 (64-bit)	LS-Label-Studio-1.1-windows-x64.exe
Linux x86-64	ls-label-studio-1.1-linux-x86_64.tar.gz

One-time setup: LightScribe System Software

LS Label Studio does not contain any code or data from HP. On first start it reads the drive parameter tables and halftone tables once from your own copy of the original LightScribe System Software 1.18.27.10 and stores them locally:

• Windows: have the LightScribe System Software installed, then choose Search automatically.
• Linux: select the package lightscribe-1.18.27.10-linux-2.6-intel.deb or .rpm. Nothing needs to be installed from it.

The program verifies the tables with a checksum. Only the version it was tested with is accepted.

Installation

Linux

tar xzf ls-label-studio-1.1-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
cd ls-label-studio-1.1
bash linux/install.sh /path/to/lightscribe-1.18.27.10-linux-2.6-intel.deb   # run WITHOUT sudo

Then start LS Label Studio from the application menu.

The script asks for your password itself. It installs ls64 to /usr/local/bin, enables burning without root, installs PyQt6 if needed and adds the menu entry.

Windows

Start LS-Label-Studio-1.1-windows-x64.exe and confirm the administrator prompt. SmartScreen may warn about an unknown publisher; choose More info → Run anyway.

Using it

1. Insert a LightScribe disc label side down and wait about one minute.
2. Image tab: open an image and adjust it. Text tab: add titles.
3. Burn tab: click Check disc, then Burn.

Tested hardware

Drive	Media	Result
HL-DT-ST (LG) GH24LS50	LightScribe media (media IDs 112 / 114)	✔ Linux and Windows

The drive parameters of all 123 drive models known to the original software are read during setup, so other LightScribe drives are expected to work. Reports are welcome.

How it was built

The project started from a 32-bit Linux package and ended with a native implementation on both platforms. The complete process is documented as a technical report: docs/. It covers methodology, drive protocol, geometry, image quality analysis, halftoning, color conversion, the cross-platform port and measured results.

AI assistance: This project was developed with the assistance of an AI model (Claude, Anthropic). All results were verified on real hardware.

Building from source

# Linux: ls64 (needs gcc, libpng, zlib); 'make dynamisch' links against the system libraries
make -C src dynamisch
bash linux/install.sh /path/to/lightscribe-1.18.27.10-linux-2.6-intel.deb

Windows: run windows\build_windows.bat (needs Python 3.10+; it fetches PyQt6, PyInstaller and the Zig C compiler via pip and produces dist\LS-Label-Studio.exe).

Folder	Content
src/	ls64 (C): drive access (plattform.c), image → tracks and halftoning (spuren.c, bild.c), burning (brennen.c), table setup (daten.c)
gui/	LS Label Studio (Python + Qt)
linux/, windows/	install and build scripts
docs/	technical report

Contributions are welcome, especially reports from other LightScribe drives: the output of ls64 info and a photo of a burned label help a lot.

Please never add files, tables or binaries from the LightScribe System Software to this repository.

License and notices

• Program and source code: GNU General Public License v3.0 or later.
• Documentation and images in docs/: CC BY 4.0.
• LightScribe is a trademark of HP Development Company, L.P. This project is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by HP. See NOTICE.md.