Submit Scans

We need scans! Here’s the deal…

I don’t own any cards or a scanner at the moment, and I am incompetent at image editing, so I need your help.

I request that anyone who would like to contribute to this project either be adept with image editing software like Photoshop or GIMP, or have a friend that could edit the images for them.

Alternatively, if you are unable to scan cards, but can do image editing, then that could work as well!

Step 1 – E-mail me!

First and foremost, get in contact with me at adam@pkmncards.com so we can discuss things and make plans moving forward. Here are the main things I need to know:

  1. Can you help with scanning, image editing, or both?
  2. How big is your card collection?
  3. What kind of scanner do you have? (make/model)
  4. Send me a raw sample scan following the directions below.

Questions 2 through 4 only apply if you can help with scanning. But in either case, whether you can scan or edit images, please make sure to read over all the following steps and ask me questions if anything is unclear.

The way I’d like to go about getting the scans done is to move backward through time, so the priority sets are anything modified legal (like Noble Victories, Emerging Powers, etc.), then we’ll go from there.

Step 2 – Prepping the Cards

I’ve found a guide to scanning cards on this webpage, and here are the basic guidelines they suggest to get stellar scans:

  1. Use a high-end scanner, if possible.
  2. Use MINT cards.
  3. Make sure the scanner’s glass surface is CLEAN. Wipe it off every so often with an appropriate cleaning cloth if need be.
  4. Make sure the cards are CLEAN. Wipe them off with a moist cotton ball or q-tip if needed to remove dirt.
  5. Make sure the cards are FLAT. Some scanner lids don’t push the cards all the way down, causing a bulge.
  6. Scan as many cards as you can fit at a time, with a little space between each. We need to edit the images anyway, so it’s ok if the cards are a little askew in terms of alignment.

Step 3 – Scanner Settings

Here are the most crucial scanner settings to take note of:

  1. Scan at exactly 600 dpi (no less, no higher). The reason being is that if we go any higher, the file sizes will be too big, and any lower, the quality will be affected.
  2. Save as PNG.
  3. I will leave it up to you to adjust any remaining settings. Just do your best to make the scans look good. The images should be aesthetically pleasing and the text easy to read.
  4. Save the settings you used for scanning to a profile, so scans will be consistent if you do another batch in the future.

Step 4 – Edit the Images

Here is what I’m thinking as far as editing the raw images:

  1. About a 10px border on all sides looks nice (using the natural card border, like this).
  2. Final dimensions (with border) – 480 x 680, or as close to those dimensions as you can get. Always make the height 680 pixels, then adjust the width as need be from there.
  3. Save as JPG and 90-95% compression/quality.
  4. File name should be the number of the card (eg. 1.jpg, 48.jpg, 99.jpg, etc.).
  5. Final file size – no larger than 250 kb. Ideally, the files should be less than 200 kb. This is appreciated by users with less than ideal internet connections, as well as the owner of this site who has to eat up bandwidth fees. :P

And adjust colors/contrast as need be. The goal is to have a the scanner do most of the legwork in terms of getting the right colors and everything… that’s why it’s important to use a high-end scanner if you can get ahold of one.

Otherwise like I mentioned before, the goal is to make the images look aesthetically pleasing and have the text be easy to read. Just do your best to make the scans look nice! :)

Anyway, thanks again to anyone who can help out! If you have any questions, just let me know – shoot an e-mail to adam@pkmncards.com.

Thanks for reading and let’s get scanning!

-Adam