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I have a card game with 500+ cards. I want to scan all those and have them as individual PNG files, with transparent rounded corners.

I have a simple consumer scanner. I can fit 8 cards with ease and still have a lot of white space around the cards.

This has a few downsides.

  • chopping them up is hard
  • cards are skewed (at least a bit)
  • After chopping them up I need to export them to new files ans same each individually.

Scanning individual cards won't improve this much.

I have quite a bit of Photoshop experience but not a lot of scanning.
Can anybody help me make this process smoother?

Keltari
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janw
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    Assuming the cards are all the same size, I would arrange them tight on the glass, which will keep everything aligned and in a standard grid pattern. Use something like Irfanview to scan and automate chopping up the scan into individual card images. If the card background is white, stick a uniquely-colored sheet behind the cards. You can then convert that color to transparent at the corners. – fixer1234 May 31 '16 at 19:26
  • I have used [AutoSplitter](http://autosplitter.com/) for this in the past. – Moshe Katz May 31 '16 at 19:27
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    I would go one step beyond @fixer1234 suggestion and make a *jig* out of matte board (again, with a unique color) so that your alignment across scans is as perfect as possible. IMO, without proper alignment, cutting out and correcting the cards is going to take more time than if you scanned them individually – Yorik May 31 '16 at 19:34
  • As someone who have done something similar on a flat bed scanner, I would say aligning the cards takes a lot of work. The worst part is that once I close the lit, the card will move a bit due to air pressure. I wish I have some sort of software that can auto detect the edge and crop out the picture along with round edges. – some user May 31 '16 at 23:53
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    Most of your scan time will be in preparing for the scan (positioning a batch of cards) and then chopping up the result. Even if you do one at a time, a flatbed scanner will be slow. Another approach would be to buy a small sheetfed scanner of [this genre](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00NJ3OAR4/ezvid02-20) (can't vouch for a specific model, but this one is under $40 incl shipping). Doctor's offices use them to scan insurance cards. You just hand feed the cards one at a time and it takes a few seconds total for each, outputting individual images that can be batch tweaked. – fixer1234 Jun 01 '16 at 00:39
  • On alignment, could you always place the cards against an edge of the scanner such that alignment is guaranteed? (And have none "floating") – user2813274 Jun 15 '16 at 13:52

2 Answers2

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In my opinion it would be better if you scann them one by one.

This way they will be aligned the same in respect of the corner of the scanner and can be named with a specific file name.

After that you can prepare a Photoshop batch action to crop them and to make the round borders, and as they are all aligned the action will be aplied correctly.

Look for the specific steps you want, but some tutorials can be found arround: https://www.google.com.mx/search?q=batch+action+photoshop

And here is one for Photoshop esentials for the rounded corners, for example http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/rounded-corners/

Some time is wasted on a "preview" where you pre scann your image and select the part you want to scann. You can skip this step. Make it only once for the first scann each session.

One recomendation is that you prepare your workspace so you can in some extend do that in a series of optimized arm moves.

One important thing: Deactivate any post process during the scann. For example some scanners have some feature to remove the screen of the print. But this would be applied during each scann making it last longer. Make any de-screening as part of your batch action. This way you can go and see a movie whiloe yhe computer makes this adjustments.

An aditional tip, scann at the real resolution you want. Some people like to use the maximum scanning resolution. Make some tests, probably you can use the standard 300 ppi or probably 200 ppi are just fine for you. But probably scanning with more ppi is just a waste of time.

Rafael
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  • For the person that downvoted, why does not answer the question **Can anybody help me make this process smoother?** – Rafael May 31 '16 at 20:46
  • I don't see why this should deserve a downvote. upvoted for balace. – janw Jun 01 '16 at 06:49
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I was scanning photos from many photo albums and found the software (at the time) that auto crops and straightens the images to cause distortions. I ended up doing a physical hack that made my life easier. Since most of the photos I had were the same size, I made a holder. I went to a craft store and bought a really thick piece of black cardboard. I cut the cardboard to fit my flatbed scanner. Then with a spare piece of cardboard I traced the outline of a 5x7 photo onto it and cut it out. I then placed that cutout onto the flatbed cardboard and using a T-Square, I was able to line up and level the cutout onto it and cut out several 5x7 holes. I was then able to place the photos into the holes and have perfectly level pictures every time. Plus with the cardboard being black, it was easy to select the black in the image, invert the selection and pastes the pictures individually to be saved.

Software might have gotten better at this by now, my current scanner software has the ability to separate multiple photos, but I havent tried it.

Keltari
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