To enlight the cards

no, no - I am NOT talking about setting my lovely cards on fire!

What I am talking about is that I have noticed with two of my decks (the ones I am using most these days) Bohemian Gothic and Quantum Tarot that the pictures I can find on-line are so much more vivid and colorful. And it is so much easier to see particular details in the cards etc. If I look at laid cards on my table they almost seem dull in contrast and it is very hard to see any details. Is this the hard fact of printing a picture on the paper (with different ink-and paperquality etc I guess) and nothing I can do anything about? Or is there anything I can do to enhance the viewing of the cards? Any specific color or fabric of my reading cloth? Mine is now white and pink homewoven. Any specific light source (atm I read mostly in the daylight or if its dark from the light of a lamp in the ceiling.

BB
/Anna

What an enlightening topic! heheh

I haven't invested in a reading cloth yet, but I try to do all my readings on a dark surface. I would think that a pink background would make the colours look washed out. As for a light source, I know that there are "full spectrum" lightbulbs available now, which would have the same characteristics as the light coming in your window, but brighter.

Hope this helps.

I don't have those two decks but I have noticed that cards appear different in real life from on the screen. Some appear more washed-out and some are better than they look on a monitor. I'm thinking of cards like the Tarot Nova, where the black backgrounds can never be as strong on the screen as on paper.

I think that different decks stand out against different backgrounds. Dark blue works for most of mine - I haven't bought a reading cloth, just hemmed some heavy dark blue material using iron-on hemming webbing. I know when I used to lay them out on my patterned white/pink/green quilt cover they didn't stand out so well. Maybe you could experiment?

I used to use a purple reading cloth, almost the same color as the boards here, but I switched to a rich black...whoa, what a difference. That's one thing. Another thing that helped me really connect and focus on the pictures, and this is strange, but I read in a dim room, all other lights off, with one bright backlight, instead of a typical overhead ceiling light. It shuts out the visual static from the room, and lights up just my cards and table area. I also always read with a candle or two, and if I really want to "shed some light" I'll pull the flame a little closer, and read the card closer to it.

Since doing that, the images become more important, brighter, and I find that I can focus better. Of course, all this isn't practical if you're reading out in public, but a good start would be a jet-black cloth, and a candle or two.

To bring out the color use a black cloth with halogen light.

I never even thought of halogen, but that's what my back lighting is, a pendant halogen, over my kitchen sink. It really works!

That's brilliant...er...no pun intended