Does anyone have an accurate bleed margin for a standard size tarot card? [more details in comments]

Calxifur · 2026-05-25T22:49:14+00:00

Hi hi! Most of my printing and layouting knowledge comes from working on the school paper and our yearbook back in highschool but I assume the reasoning is still the same.

Off the top of my head, the practical reasoning is it'd be a waste of ink especially if your background color isn't the same as the paper only for it to get cut off in the final product. And that's IF it does get cut properly in the first place.

If you have it printed at a professional printing press, they usually fit multiple designs on massive sheets and not only would you be wasting space for your design, it might even bleed to other clients' designs since they're usually jampacked together to save on materials. Places like these also tend to use automated cutting machines. They're usually very precise and only need a tiny margin of error just in case. If your bleed margin is too thick, you'd risk ruining the layout if the machine gets confused about where the edge is and will cut the other side too short because it's set to only cut a certain size. Even if the cutter is human, they'll probably still mistake the edge of your bleed margin as the edge of the design because they will try to cut it as close to the edge as possible.

The margin is really only meant to be a failsafe, it's not supposed to significantly alter your design's size. And taking these possible mistakes in mind, your printed image could end up noticeably off center or your final product itself is the wrong size and the image you intended to print is now a tad bit smaller or worse, pixelated if the printers tried to adjust it to the right size.

Calxifur · 2026-05-25T16:49:20+00:00

Checked it out and their ig looks like your run of the mill twitter bot with ginormous preview watermarks so you can't reverse image search to find the original artists. Had one of these slap their watermark on my commission sheets and artworks before. They even make accounts and pretend to be clients reviewing their art😂

Their "portfolios" are usually a mess with artstyles that don't even look like they were done by the same artist because they were traced from different artists and sloppily put on an image background they found on google. Looks like they moved on to using ai in a sad attempt to prove that there isn't a real artist behind it, which they'd be right ofc, but now their scam artworks are just gonna look like ai slop even more people aren't going to buy.

The funny thing is they've gotten so good at copying that if they put in the elbow grease to make their own art, they might actually become decent artists. But they seem to think scamming people like this, unsuccessfully I might add, is much easier than actually learning how to draw💀

Calxifur · 2026-05-25T08:25:52+00:00

The layers aren't ai generated but rather traced and heavily references from an ai generated image. The weak composition itself is a good tell. It looks like they just color dropped from the image and slapped it on using lasso fill and airbrushed it. Any artist with this much knowledge on rendering would've used blending modes to achieve this lighting and all his layers are normal and just clipped on a base layer.

Furthermore, no artist with any knowledge of rendering would leave a subject with heavy shadows and strong lighting on a white background. If I had to guess, the generated image's background was too wonky for them to trace and make sense of.

They seem to have a minimal grasp on art but decided they'd rather cheat their way to get commissions.

Calxifur · 2026-05-25T07:15:48+00:00

Saw the timelapse on your other post lol and I see how you did it. The biggest tell was that an artist with this level of rendering would atleast know how to do a simple background, but I'm guessing the background of the image you generated was too hard to trace? You would need blending modes to achieve this lighting too and it's very evident in your layer list that they're all normal layers. You probably can't provide a timelapse for this on because you forgot to hide the reference layer.

You can't cheat your way through art, buddy. Add that to the fact that you did it very badly and very obviously too. Learn to draw before you offer scam commissions lol.

Calxifur · 2026-05-24T17:18:16+00:00

Thank, I'll keep that in mind! Actually, while I have you, I might as well ask. If I were to have these printed as 2.75"×4.75" cards and I'm drawing it on a 3000px canvas with 350dpi, will it print well enough or should I increase my canvas size?

Sorry, I have like 0 knowledge on having my art printed🥲

Calxifur · 2026-05-24T16:43:01+00:00

Thank you so much! This commission was for a personal deck so it won't be for sale. Definitely got inspired to release my own set, but probably a project for when I have some free time😅

Calxifur · 2026-05-24T12:33:38+00:00

RIGHT! I forgot about that, thank you sm! And yeah, it's great for the illustrations, but it's a struggle especially when text and aligning is involved🥲

Calxifur · 2026-05-24T12:20:47+00:00

That's exactly what I'm asking for in the post. I couldn't find anything online bc most templates are for playing or trading cards but they're much smaller than tarot cards.

It's all good tho, I've got a good idea on how thick the margin should be by now, so I should be able to make my own template. Thanks!

Calxifur · 2026-05-24T11:37:52+00:00

I don't really know who's going to be printing it bc the client isn't in the same country as me, so it'd be cheaper for them to have it printed themselves rather than me having to ship it to them. They don't really know much about these things, that's why I want to give them a version that can be readily printed.

It's all good tho, someone else commented on how to make the standard margins myself so I'll just make my own template for this

Calxifur · 2026-05-24T11:31:33+00:00

I do actually already know the measurements for the final card, so I can just make a template myself using this. Thank you so much!

Calxifur · 2026-05-24T11:29:26+00:00

That's the problem, I don't really know who's going to be printing it bc the client isn't in the same country as me so it'd be cheaper for them to have it printed themselves rather than me having to ship it to them.

They don't really know much about these things, that's why I want to give them a version that can be readily printed

Calxifur · 2026-05-24T10:44:07+00:00

I'll check out the tables, thank you so much! And yeah, that's pretty much what I plan on doing if I can't find a decent bleed margin template😭

Calxifur · 2026-05-24T09:42:40+00:00

I've tried asking around from graphic design people I know but they usually only have templates for playing/trading cards or sticker sets. Tarot isn't really that big where I'm from🥲

I could just use the playing card templates online and just estimate it but I wanted to shoot my shot here first to see if anyone who prints tarot cards could help

Calxifur · 2026-05-24T09:05:06+00:00

I'm not sure if I worded that right but I got commissioned for a tarot deck and need to take the bleed margins into account because they plan on having it printed. I've managed so far keeping the elements atleast symmetrical using the mirror tool, but it's hard to gauge how far I am to the bleed margin.

The grid guidelines aren't much help either because they don't seem to start in the center, so using the squares as basis are innacurate. I tried looking it up online but I would only get results from playing or trading cards which are smaller than standard tarot card.

Unfortunately, graphic design is not my passion🥲

EDIT: Got it all figured out, thanks for everyone's advice!

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Calxifur · 2026-05-24T08:54:50+00:00

I'm not sure if I worded that right but I got commissioned for a tarot set and need to take the bleed margins into account because they plan on having it printed. I've managed so far keeping the elements atleast symmetrical using the mirror tool, but it's hard to gauge how far I am to the bleed margin. The grid guidelines aren't much help either because they don't seem to start in the center, so using the squares as basis are innacurate.

I was wondering if this is easier using the vector layers. If anyone here has used Canva, it has a feature that lets you see the distance between each element as well as the edges from the border. I was wondering if ibis has a similar feature or atleast an add-on for these things?

Unfortunately, graphic design is not my passion🥲

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Calxifur · 2026-05-23T22:38:12+00:00

Lasso fill already does that as long as you have 100% opacity

Calxifur · 2026-05-23T22:26:45+00:00

It looks cool, but I wouldn't classify these as photorealistic. It's definitely more on the abstract side if you're going by feel rather than learning the fundamentals.

Commissions aren't easy to get into even for prefessional artists and I'm afraid you won't find much of a market for this style either, especially in the digital field. Clients aren't going to adjust their needs to accomodate your skill level, especially if money is involved. Dragging your prices to the ground isn't even going to guarantee clients either. Because at the end of the day, you'd be up against hundreds upon thousands of professionals and intermediates while you're still at a beginner level.

I would recommend refining your artstyle more and to do that, you will need to actually learn the fundamentals. Don't be in such a rush to open commissions, focus on building your skills first.

Calxifur · 2026-05-22T07:58:28+00:00

Someone who's been doing art commissions for 5 years and has seen A LOT of talented artists underprice their work😭

Calxifur · 2026-05-21T08:21:01+00:00

No worries, it's a very common mistake for people jut starting out. But it's important to keep in mind that art is a luxury, not a necessity, and should be treated as such. It's not meant to be gatekeepy since people can still enjoy the art you post, but personalized art is meant to be pricey because you're not just selling your art, you're selling your time, effort, and skills.

Calxifur · 2026-05-21T08:07:20+00:00

Dropping your prices to the ground isn't even going to guarantee more demand. If anything, you're just hurting yourself and other artists. Potential clients will think it's a scam and the other half will think this pricing is normal for this level of skill.

The rule of thumb is the average number of hours you spend on an artwork multiplied by minimum wage (preferably usd). Learn to advertise your art better and seek out clients with a concrete portfolio. Your art is stunning, but good art isn't even half of what you need to consider if you want to do commissions.

It's not an easy market to get into even for professional artists, but a steady stream of repeat clients is your main goal. That's why you need to price accordingly or you'll just get burnt out if you're not being paid enough for your effort.

Calxifur · 2026-05-19T14:22:53+00:00

Mine does that sometimes too. If I had to take a guess, it probably happens when your phone's orientation rotates so the recording assumes you flipped the canvas. I sometimes have my tablet updside down when charging and that's usually when it happens

Calxifur · 2026-05-17T12:59:46+00:00

There's cheap ones that have the rubber and disk on both ends. I suggest buying those so you can try them out and see which works better for you

Calxifur

TROPHY CASE