HOW A CUSTOM CARD IS MADE.

A custom trading card starts as a handful of phone photos and ends as a proof you approve. Six checks stand between the two — the same six on how it's made. Each one makes something you can look at, and each one can say no. Here they are in plain words, starting with the photos the photo guide asks for.

Do we use AI? Yes, as a tool. AI imaging tools are part of the process, and every composition, likeness, spelling, color and detail is reviewed and finished by a person before you see the proof.

1. The photo check. We look at every photo you sent and tell you, in plain words, which ones can carry the likeness and what would fix the rest. The reasons are things you can act on — a photo with four people and no clear subject, eyes hidden behind a visor, every photo facing the camera square on.

2. The uniform. The kit belongs to the sport, not to the person: shirt, shorts, socks, footwear and your crest, copied from your photos exactly as they are. Nothing on the kit is invented. A uniform we rebuilt once came back with a league shield where the club crest had been; it never left the studio, and that is what this check is for.

3. The reference set. From your photos we build one reference of your athlete — front and both sides — and settle it before a single pose is made. That reference is the anchor: every later shot is measured against it.

4. Four shots. From the approved reference come four shots — a hero, two action shots and a back or celebration shot. Hands are asked for, not fixed afterwards: every pose asks for five separated fingers doing something real. When a shot is right except for one detail, that one detail is changed and nothing else moves.

5. Verification. Every shot goes next to the reference in one picture. Every crest, number and mark on the shot must have a twin on the reference, and the face must measure as the same person. No scores are shown to anyone: a shot passes or it doesn't, and one that doesn't never reaches the finish. The measurement exists only to check likeness for your order, is never shared, and is destroyed when the order closes.

6. The finish. Everything is then built around the shots — the type, the material, your team colors — in one of six finishes, each with its own materials and mood, from a floodlit stadium at night to high-contrast chrome, or the gold Senior Night edition.

Then a watermarked proof comes to you by email, within 1–2 business days, and it is free: you see it before you pay anything, and you pay only after you approve. Approving your proof means you checked the name, number, spelling and colors. One revision is included.

Approve, and the files are released; for printed pieces, printing starts that moment. Printed cards are square-cut, UV-coated, 2.5 × 3.5 in, made by a professional photo lab in the US, and every shipped package carries a free printed Certificate of Authenticity. Every card carries its registered card ID on the back. Scanning its QR code opens the card's own page — the edition, the stats and the season — and the ID can be typed into the registry any time.

About fifty images are made for one athlete. Four ship. The rest are the ones we throw away — the uniform that changed between shots, the shot that drifted away from the reference — and they are the reason our promise can say what it says.