Improve scan accuracy

Photo quality basics

• Use clear, well-lit photos — minimal glare gives the best results, especially on chrome and foil cards.
• Shoot on a plain, solid background.
• Keep the full card (or slab) square and inside the frame.
• Capture serial numbers and cert numbers clearly so CardSense can read them. When CardSense identifies a slab, including in iPhone Quick Scan, it marks the card Graded so the grader and grade appear. Cards scanned before this change are not updated; switch Graded on from the card page to show their saved grading.
• Retake any photo where the text is blurry.
• Supported image formats are JPG, PNG, and WebP.

Always capture both sides

CardSense reads the front and the back together. Capturing both sides is the single biggest accuracy win — dual-side processing pushes field extraction to about 70%+, because the back carries the card number, set, copyright year, and parallel details the front often hides.

You can still scan a card with only one photo when that's all you have. CardZen tells you first that a one-sided scan reads fewer fields and costs the same scan as a two-sided one, so the trade-off is yours to make before the credit is spent — and it flags the card afterwards so you know which ones were read from a single side.

When CardSense misses something

Fix the field during batch review. CardZen keeps your confirmed edit and uses it as the trusted record from then on, so the same card won't need correcting again. Saving both a grader and grade through bulk edit or iPhone review marks the card Graded.

Accurate fields mean more comps

Comp matching leans on player, year, set, card number, and parallel. The more of those are right, the more sold and active comps CardZen can match to the card.

Common misspellings in a parallel are snapped to the real name automatically — Refactor is matched as Refractor — and a card whose strict match finds nothing keeps previous comps that still match its current details. Raw cards never reuse old slab comps.

A graded card is only compared with graded sales, and a raw card with raw sales. If CardSense read a grade from a raw card, choose a raw condition in the card editor. The stored grade is kept but ignored in price comparisons and hidden from Cards, batch review, and the card editor. Selecting Graded again restores it. If a card is marked graded but has no grade entered (blank, N/A or NOT GRADED), CardZen compares it with graded sales of any grade, from the same grading company when that is known; add the grade to narrow comps to that exact grade.

Keep an eye on your scan allowance

Each card you capture uses one scan from your monthly allowance, shown in the top bar (for example "859 / 1,000 scans"). The count resets at the start of each billing month.

If you're running low, upgrade your plan from Settings to raise the limit. Better photos help too — fewer retakes means fewer scans spent.