Printing Your Own Cards

[Elentir]

Has anyone considered/actually done the printing of their deck entirely on their own? I ask because I'm not interested in publishing a deck, but rather customizing my own for personal use, and I would only want/need one copy of it.

I can get all of the images into Photoshop and edit them the way I want, but then the question is: how to print them?

I've considered buying U.S. Games "blank" tarot, but that still leaves open the question of what sort of printer does one use, and how do you get the card to feed through the printer? Does it have to be mounted? What if you want a full bleed on the cards? I also wonder whether these blank cards would "hold" the ink; has anyone actually used this blank deck? What's the surface like, and what drawing medium did you use on them?

Can you bring a blank deck and a CD of your images to a professional printer? Any idea how much that would cost? Is this the sort of thing Kinko's could manage?

Any ideas, suggestions, experiences in this would be greatly appreciated.

 

[witchywomyn]

Can't you just use 8 1/2 x 11 perforated card stock - you would just need to feed the paper through twice - one time for the front and a second time for the back of the card - hopefully you have a printer that prints bleeds - but that should work - no??

 

[HudsonGray]

I wrote all about the printer info we got in the Ferret Tarot postings (three separate discussions) in the tarot deck creation board, but here's a condensed version.

Check around to see who does digital printing. They can print on card stock now & you can get bleeds all the way out to the ends if you need them. Ours said we could color our deck in & do a separate color version of it for about $8 printing cost for the deck (8 cards per page, 10 pages) plus $1 setup per page if the cards were all loose and had to be carefully placed on the screen.

The colors were very very close to true from the sample he ran off for me. Other printers might charge less, ask them, this isn't just a color laser print, it's digital on a different machine. The digital scans can do color very easily now. I don't know how colorfast they are if the deck is constantly in the sun, as the reds & yellows may bleed out over time. But for a one time deck, you can do it on regular plain paper & just have them run off the thing on card stock for you. Larger cards would be fewer to a page, and a bit more cost probably. This isn't a color separation printing, so the colors aren't as long term permanent, yet should still go for may years for you.

 

[skytwig]

Thanks Hudson!!

 

[Shade]

hmmmm... would professional printers be able to print directly onto a blank deck? I had assumed I was going to have to print the cards on paper and then laminate them onto the blank deck.

 

[Elentir]

More Tarot printing questions

Well, I'm thinking I'm going to have to give up the print-it-yourself idea, although I will see how the blank deck works when I get it and report back on it.

I guess what I'm thinking I'll do is do up all of my images in Photoshop, burn them onto a CD, and bring them to a print shop and ask them to print them digitally on playing-card-thick card stock, maybe six to a page; in fact, I can lay them out six to a page in Photoshop myself, and save them time (and me money, I assume). They'd have to be double-sided, of course, but the reverse-side would be identical on every card, so that seems pretty easy.

Then there's the cutting of the cards...it seems to me rounded edges would be essential, I don't know if that's something a print shop can do, but maybe...

My biggest concern would be the longevity of the cards and whether they would need to be coated or something to keep them from wearing out too soon.

Anyone care to estimate how much they'd expect to pay for something like this? That is, assuming the print shop wouldn't have to do any of the laying out, just the printing and the cutting?

Thanks to you all for your input!

 

[Astra]

philc5 - there's a thread somewhere in the section about a gadget you can buy to round the corners yourself.... and about corner cutting in general. For a one-off print job, both sides, figure about $1.50 per page per side. (Kinko's latest price in Chicago), and a minimum cutting charge of about $8 (sharp corners). A good paper cutter is probably worth investing in if you're going to do this more than once - I've been amazed at how useful mine has been. Unless your cards are running larger than normal, you should be able to fit 8 per page.

 

[Shade]

When picking the 6 or so cards per page try keep similarly colored cards on the same pages, I've heard taht makes for better results.

 

[HudsonGray]

We got quotes of $50 to round the corners on 30 decks, they charge by the cut.

The printers charge per cut also for cutting out the actual square cards, here it's 50 cents a cut--I watched how they do it. The cards are stacked high as the machine will nicely cut, they're held in place & this big cleaver comes down & slices the whole thing. They do 4 cuts around the outside edges of the 8 1/2"x 11" page to trim off the outside. Next is the cut down the middle, dividing the page into halves, stack that on top the other half, then cut between the 4 cards that are showing. That's 8 cuts per stack. If you're doing one deck, figure about $4 to cut the cards. But you can do the same thing with any good paper cutter at home. Just measure carefully. If you're doing the layout, use a template so each page is exactly set up the same as the next, otherwise a printer can't really do a good job cutting them. They really don't want to do individual sheets, they'd rather stack & chomp.

A corner rounder can be bought at any scrapbooking store or art supply store (in their rubber stamp section), it costs $8 or $8.50. I looked into it, but the one on the market didn't do a smooth transition from the edge of the card to the rounded section, there was a jog in the paper no matter how I fitted it to the corner.

Philc, did you check out the bottom of this page: http://www.themysticeye.com/ They were offering free digital printing, but only if the artist lets them use some of the images. Might be worth a shot?

 

[Major Tom]

Re: More Tarot printing questions

Well, I'm thinking I'm going to have to give up the print-it-yourself idea, although I will see how the blank deck works when I get it and report back on it.

Do let us know how you get on with the blank deck. Will the cards go through a printer? I'd not thought of this before.