speak to me

so basically my problem right now is that none of the tarot decks I have seen lately really speak to me
and i have been looking for a new deck for quite some time
has anyone made a deck and published it as a deck of one for personal use only? how long did it take?
example: most of the images I would use for a personal deck would be created on my computer, and a printout I think wouldn't be the same as a real card, you know?
please let me know any suggestions you might have.

Dig into the archives in this section, there was a lot in there about using card stock, lamination, etc. to get stiffness on the cards.

Have you thought about making your own deck? Collage is the easiest way if you don't feel you can draw or paint, but if you use photoshop you can use just about any image that you can get into your program.

Time to make one? HA! A few months to a bunch of years. Depends on what you want, how you like what you made, whether or not you got stuck, artist's block, or any bunch of things. OR you can sit down with a whole stack of magazines and put something together quick in a long afternoon. I guess it would depend on you & what you'd be happy using.

I'm drawing mine, and that artist block is a real killer. A few cards have to be redone too, but for the most part I've got most of the deck drawn & it's taken from second week in Dec. of last year to now. About 9 more cards to go.

sorry, i am strictly digital
thought i mentioned that, but i guess not

hexy said:

has anyone made a deck and published it as a deck of one for personal use only?

how long did it take?

a printout I think wouldn't be the same as a real card, you know?

Click to expand...

This is precisely what I'm doing with Major Tom's Tarot. I'm creating cards on my computer and printing them out individually for my own use. I print them on 200 gram photo paper using my ink jet printer.

I've been working on my deck about 2 years now and have completed 50 cards. How long it would take you depends entirely on you and how quickly you work.

My printed cards seem very real to me.

Ah, when you said 'computer' I still wasn't sure about photoshop or what, as my hand drawn cards are scanned in & then cleaned up on computer (so technically, I'm working with them on computer too). There's some problem with fine lines showing properly when printed out that I don't have when I use xerox off the original hard copies. It's frustrating.

The paper you print on will be the main defining factor. I've seen scanned watercolor art that printed on photopaper that had a color shift in the blues which was way off from the original. You'll have to check how each card looks on paper vs how it shows in the machine. True color transfer can be a real pain no matter how you tweak it. Good luck to you on that one!

suggestions for making your cards "real"

I felt the same way originally. Now I own a Cannon 850i photo-quality printer. I began using glossy photo paper, but the outcome did not "feel" right -- hard to shuffle. Then I tested some plain card stock and discovered the digital image seems very high quality. I also notice that card stock is more "forgiving" because it masks details that reveal cropped edges.
For my digital images, I use a .jpg file, 300 ppi and a standard size of 3.5 to 5 inches (seems a little large to handle but great detail).

Some drawbacks of the Cannon 850i:
1. Black borders seem to have a bad striping effect.
2. Color ink is expensive, and a pain when you run out, (I printed about 100 full color 8.5 by 11 flyers before yellow ran out, so 78 cards would not be so bad.)

You could also take your images to a print shop and ask them the price. Good Luck!

thanks for all your suggestions and advice on how to print something of quality

HudsonGray said:

There's some problem with fine lines showing properly when printed out that I don't have when I use xerox off the original hard copies. It's frustrating.

Click to expand...

That shouldn't be happening --- check the resolution that your scanner and printer are set at. Sometimes there's a different setting for final copies and for quick, low-resolution proofs, and the default setting is the latter.

The computer printout should keep more detail than a xerox. If your printer is low dpi or you are using one that doesn't use waterproof inks then I suggest looking into using a laser printer at the copying store --- most Kinko's and the like have high-resolution printers available, and printouts are about the same cost as copies. Just take your files in on a disk and ask if they have a color laser printer --- those things are awesome, but too expensive for the likes of me to own

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's the ink cartridge, though the printer isn't one of the better ones on the market. We're fooling around with the resolution & if we do the originals scanned in & printed on glossy photo paper, we do get it crisp & clear, but it has to be set at 'best' for print quality.

I think I'm spoiled by xeroxes, I used them so much in the past on other things.