In order to scan card images, please read the following instructions carefully.
1. Preparations
- Use a high-end scanner.
- Use cards in good condition, preferably Mint or Near Mint.
- Make sure the scanner’s glass surface and the cards are clean. It is important that there’s as little dust as possible.
- Make sure the cards are flat against the scanner glass. Some scanner lids aren’t perfect and don’t press on the cards enough.
- Scan as many cards you can fit at a time.
- Make sure to leave some space between the cards (including the border of the scanner), so that the card borders don’t overlap.
- The alignment of the cards doesn’t need to be perfect; the scans need to be edited anyway.
2. Scanner settings
- Scan between 600 and 1600 DPI. Higher DPI is better, but the file size to quality ratio is usually not worth it above 1600.
- Don’t use settings such as (un)sharpening, descreening, dust removal, etc. It’s generally better to do this when editing the images. If you intend on using a color profile, it’s recommended to disable the color correction setting as well.
- Output as millions of colors, 24-bit color, or true color (they’re all the same thing).
- In general, just do your best to make the scans look good. The text must also be easy to read.
- Save the scans as TIFF, PNG (>= 24-bit), or any other lossless format.
- Make sure you use the same settings for all card scans.
3. Edit the images (optional)
- Each individual image must be saved as a separate file.
- The images must be oriented in portrait mode.
- Trim all surrounding whitespace or transparency from the images.