Most Efficient Way To Scan/Upload Cards

[Jon21]

I am just getting back into the hobby after a few month hiatus and I am looking for some input as to the most efficient and effective way to scan or upload my card collection. This will be for trading purposes, to be able to easily list and sell on ebay and to catalogue what I have.

Would you recommend using a scanner or taking photographs? Any insight and personal experiences would be great. I probably have a few thousand cards I want to scan or put up for trade so efficiency is important. I was want clarity.

From my own past experiences, scanning looks better but at the same time took a lot longer for each individual card. Pictures were faster but I would often have to take multiple shots just to get a good one (and angles/lighting would often be a problem).

Thanks in advance.

 

[leafschik1967]

I prefer scans, I think they are better at showing the details of a card. It takes a long time to scan a bunch of cards though, there's no question. I haven't found a way around it, but when I am in a scanning mood, I make sure to get as many done as I can, because I never know when I will feel like scanning again.

 

[Jon21]

Thanks for the advice. Is it easy to scan cards in groups of i.e. 9 and simply crop them into smaller pictures or would it be more efficient to just go one at a time. Anyone with experience, it would be greatly appreciated. I noticed a lot buckets are nicely organized.

Any scanners you would recommend?

 

[JoeyStorm]

its faster to fit as many as you can on your scanner than crop them using photoshop or any generic image editor

 

[Nicktron]

I'm a scan guy, on my scanner, if i space 6 cards apart, it crops each individual card and breaks the scan into 6 seperate files. it really helps speed up the scanning process.

 

[pathshot]

What I do:

-Scan up to 9 cards laid out using either "letter" or "a4" settings at the highest resolution possible.
-I use GIMP - http://www.gimp.org - to cut down images, rotate as necessary, scale them to roughly 800x573 (3.5" x 2.5"), and save in a JPEG format to keep size down.
-I use a free software on my web server called "Gallery" to keep all my images together. It's searchable, and doesn't suck. I give appropriate labels, and then I can use them for eBay listings.

It takes roughly 10 minutes to scan and cut down 9 cards.

-m.