How to photograph a card for an accurate estimate

Practical guide

Whether it's for a sales listing or a condition estimate, photo quality decides result quality. The same card photographed badly can look worse (or better) than it is. A few rules solve most of the problems.

Light

• Use diffuse, indirect light — near a window on an overcast day is ideal. Avoid direct sun and pointed lamps.
• No flash. It creates a central reflection that hides scratches and surface defects exactly where you'd want to see them.
• For holo/foil cards, tilt the card slightly (not the camera) until the foil reflection moves off the artwork.

Framing

• Camera parallel to the card and centered: never from an angle, or perspective distorts the centering (see card centering).
• Frame the whole card, all four edges visible, with some background around it. Don't crop the corners.
• Neutral, uniform background — a white or grey sheet, a matte dark surface. No wood grain, no patterns.

Focus and stability

Tap the screen to focus on the card before shooting. If your hand shakes, brace your elbows or rest the phone on a support. A photo that's even slightly out of focus makes the assessment of corners and surface unreliable.

Front and back

You need both faces, shot with the same care. The back counts for centering and shows defects (whitening, creases, stamps) the front doesn't reveal.

Sleeve or no sleeve

If the sleeve is clean and matte you can leave it on; if it's scratched or glossy, take it off — plastic scratches would be read as card scratches. Never photograph inside a thick or damaged toploader.

Our tool checks the photo before spending a scan and flags whether resolution, focus or exposure are insufficient — so you don't spend a scan on a photo that wouldn't give a good result. You can try it here.