Criteria: When Adding Card Images
TappedOut forum
Posted on Dec. 12, 2013, 1:03 a.m. by Femme_Fatale
Me being obsessed with T/O's card image database, I am now asking other users to follow a particular criteria when adding cards from hence forth. This way I no longer get obsessive compulsive urges to fix them, as currently the New Phyrexia set, the M14 set, the M12 set and some from the first commander set have numerous cards that are blurry or have images that aren't cropped properly.
- (Preview edit: Jesus, this thing is LONG. I didn't expect it to be this long, I was just typing merrily away ...)
- (Preview edit 2: All square brackets are to be replaced with squiggly brackets)
Very very simple criteria to follow, one that I've found makes the images look really nice and crisp.
Before I was just using the card images on gatherer to upload them on here. Doing a 201x237 card image size, (most of the 2014 core set ones I fixed are in this size) I realized that those images just weren't cutting it, because they occasionally came up blurred or the text was choppy, no matter who did them. But then when I looked at Commander 2013 set images I did they looked much nicer. I wondered why, then I remembered that I took them straight from the WotC Card Image Database.
Now, please look at the following url.
This is the product page for conflux, on this page you'll be able to navigate to something called "Visual Spoiler" and on newer ones it says "Card Image Database".
Now here is the nifty part, at the very end of that url where it says "Conflux", swap that for any current set released after Conflux and it will take you to that page.
From the image database set you can navigate to the card you need and use that image. These images are larger than the ones in gatherer and will appear crisper here on T/O (T/O's images default to a 199x285 size by the way(sometimes goes to 200x285 though), but the original file is left intact).
OR you could use this url to take you directly to the card image database. The difference between the two is that this one only deals in Innistrad and up, it does however deal in special sets like Commander 2013, which the first one doesn't deal with.
When taking this image, it MUST be cropped! Use, Gyazo, Paint, or Photobucket or whatever, but you MUST crop it! (Death glares at meecht, I still haven't fixed all of your errors yet >:o!) An accepted crop is when you leave just one pixel of the black border left. It takes a little practice, but once you get good at it, it is very easy to use (I use Gyazo myself and it takes a few seconds). The resulting pixels should be around 241x346. Black cards and planeswalkers will be more difficult than normal to do, so don't worry about getting it spot on for those ones.
Example: 
If you are a Cockatrice or an OCTGN user, you should have card images stored somewhere on your computer. I'm an OCTGN user myself so I can't guarantee that the other programs like MTGO or Cockatrice will have them. These images are MUCH larger than the ones stored on the WotC Card Image Galleries, and since they are already saved, and depending on your program, cropped, it shouldn't be that hard to use them. OCTGN doesn't have any of their cards fully cropped to the degree accepted here on T/O, so you'll need to first find them in files, (best to name the folder with it's set's code name AFTER the original name, this way you can easily find new folders when you install them to OCTGN) and then crop the image itself.
I decided that it would be nice to have a set criteria when adding card information too, that way we can all be comfortable with them. This is however debatable. I personally think when doing the rules, we should follow the same coding used to search things under the gatherer search. So a green mana symbol would be [G], same with the Tap symbol and other colours. Phyrexian mana and hybrid mana, though listed as [(]u/p)] or [(]g/w)] for blue phyrexian mana or Selesnya hybrid mana etc, I think should be listed as [U/P] or [G/W] etc. The full updated gatherer errata should be used, (so if you find one with old errata, update it!) and the proper coding. Asterisks for italics, < br > for line breaks in the flavor text and my own personal obsessive detail, the long hyphen ! ... ! ... damn. (I default to Admonition Angel on the gatherer search whenever I need to find one.)
Finally when listing colours, WUBRG (wooberg) order should be used (or whatever order the card's mana symbols are in, as hybrid mana doesn't follow WUBRG), and the flashback cost should be put in, considering that is oddly the only ability with a cost used on the "add a card" pages. The Planeswalker loyalty number should be put in the loyalty spot and not in the toughness spot. I'm not too sure on the mana produced thing though, do we put only the colour of mana that could be produced, like B or do we use the full mana produced, like BBB for Dark Ritual ? (I've seen both, also important to note that squiggly brackets and other coding are only for the rules/flavour text sections.)
Now this ends my, force-ably pushing my obsessive desires onto you, card image rant. I hope that we can all come to a consensus as to what to follow. Have a nice day!
Femme_Fatale says... #3
In those cases, take the entire border out. The only reason why I (and some others) prefer to leave a one pixel black border on the card is taking the entire border out makes the card look a little small meecht.
I don't expect anyone to actually reply to this considering how long this is. I was expecting maybe about half this length. But then again, I was gathering information and typing for about 5 hours. I just didn't realize that I was spending that much time on this x.x
December 12, 2013 10:48 a.m.
To be honest, the only reason I looked at it was because I had the notification that you mentioned me, and I remembered you saying the same thing to me a couple months back :)
Do you happen to have a list of my submissions that still need fixing? I'd be happy to help you out by re-submitting them in the proper format, but I've deleted the images and I can't remember which ones I uploaded.
December 12, 2013 10:57 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #5
The images take me a few seconds each to do meecht. The only reason why I haven't actually completed them is because I've been created new decks and being active elsewhere. I just wanted to post this for whoever was doing the images a certain way that messed up Innistrad, New Phyrexia, M12, M14 and some from MTG:Commander. When I was looking at them, those card images were way too small, hence my wanting everyone else to use larger images from the WotC card image database instead of gatherer. It saves time and is less irritating to other users who are sensitive to blurry/incorrectly cropped images.
A few things I should mention that I realized afterwards, make sure the file is PNG. PNG works really well with text and art, where as JPEG works with real images and photographs.
If the images anyone found on OCTGN or Cockatrice where extremely large, check the colours. I know the really large versions (much larger than 241x346) from OCTGN are much darker than the originals, so I decided not to use them. It'd be best to use colour tones that match closest to the ones on the WotC Card Image Gallery/Database/Spoilers.
December 12, 2013 9:37 p.m.
GoldGhost012 says... #6
It has literally taken me all day to read this. The sad thing is, I don't think I read the entire thing.
December 12, 2013 9:43 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #7
I'm surprised you did try and read it GoldGhost012. After I realized it was this long I was like ... "I don't want to post this ... no one is going to read it." But I went fuck it and posted it anyways as to not waste the time I spent writing it out.
meecht says... #2
Well, don't I feel like an idiot...
I didn't realize that TO added it's own black border to cards. Cropping the border makes it a little confusing when you go to reference silver border cards, like Gleemax , because the original card border isn't shown.
December 12, 2013 9:58 a.m.