Site Forum

I've just started trying my hand at uploading images, and most of the submissions were accepted, but some of them were found problematic, and I'm trying to get a better sense of what makes an image low quality.

First, I'm wondering about the tiny sliver of black on an edge here and there. I wasn't sure whether to err on the side of capturing as much of the entire card as possible or on the side of cropping so that nothing but the card surface is visible even if it means trimming more to do so.

Second, the size issue. What I've been uploading today is 1968 Panini Cantanti, and they are smaller than a typical card. Am I overlooking something like maybe when the image is clicked by a viewer it gets magnified to a default size beyond what these Paninis are in real life?

Third, the original photographs themselves. Some of them are out of focus. Should I be looking for mint copies only with zero focus issues? What if there are none because the clearest photo printed for a card is blurry to begin with? I was under the impression that the images mostly serve to assist collectors by showing them what that card looks like, so they can identify it. Am I underestimating the "show-off" aspect of the galleries, i.e., finding the nicest specimens for, like, online museum purposes?

I just discovered that uploading images here compresses them a little bit. I thought I was uploading a slightly clearer Sonny & Cher, but once it was uploaded it looked almost identical to a previously flagged grainy one. Anyway, my bad for posting two of them now.

1. Trim all of the space around the card. No scanner background, no black lines.

2. Depending on what the card size was set to when the set was created, the image displayed may be smaller or larger than standard size, so it depends. If you try to upload a 200x300 image to a standard-sized spot, it's going to be stretched out. On the opposite side of things, to get under the 1MB size limit while still having decent quality, try scaling down to 750x1050 or 600x840 or 450x630.

3. Not sure if you misspoke, but the site does not accept photographs for uploads. They gotta be scans.

Good to know, I'll be removing all such slivers going forward and I'll eventually improve any of them already accepted.

I do not own the set, so I'm saving and curating the best flat, straight, and clear images of the cards that other people obviously scanned and uploaded to the internet. I figured that would be okay. If you're required to scan the cards yourself, that would cripple the ability to input scarce sets, right?

There's nothing in the rules that says you have to own the card whose images you're uploading as long as the images conform to site standards (good size, scanned not photographed, no watermarks, no mockups).

The issues with iffy 1968 Panini Cantanti uploads might be almost completely solved. There's a website with every card from 1 to 282 already perfectly scanned, large and clear and straight and flat images. Gonna reach out to the host just to make sure it's cool with him. I suspect he won't mind, I've already talked with him about my plans to update/fix the music pages here. It had slipped my mind that he had a goldmine of scans.

He said it'll be okay. My apologies in advance to anyone who carefully perused my submissions last night, but I'll probably be replacing the majority of them soon. It'll be worth it, because instead of struggling to input only 1/4th or 1/5th of the images for the main 282 stickers, and in the end still having most of the gallery empty probably forever, I'll be able to input all 282 of them, rapidly. And they'll all be much quicker to review. "Yep, looks perfect. Next."