Designing the cards is half the job; the other half is getting them out of Magic Set Editor and onto card stock without soft text, clipped borders or washed-out colour. This guide covers the MSE side of that journey and the general print concepts you will meet at any printer — kept deliberately general, because exact specifications belong to whichever print service or printer you choose, and you should always work from their own current instructions rather than numbers quoted on a fan site.
Step 1 — Export from MSE the right way
- Export the finished set as PNG images (File → Export → All Card Images exports the whole set in one batch). PNG is lossless; do not route a print job through JPG exports.
- Export at your template’s full quality. Resolution in MSE comes from the template — if your cards export small, read our high-resolution export guide before printing anything; printing a low-resolution export larger does not add detail.
- Export double-faced cards’ both faces, with file names that keep front/back pairs obvious.
Step 2 — Understand bleed before you upload anything
Printing cuts are never perfectly placed, so print files are usually made slightly larger than the finished card, with the artwork extended into a margin called bleed. The cutter trims inside that margin, so small shifts never leave a white edge. The general concept to carry into any print service’s uploader: your image needs a safe area (keep text and important art away from the edges) plus bleed beyond the trim line (let background and border art run to the edge of the file). How many millimetres of bleed, and the exact file dimensions, are set by the service you use — check their template or help page at the time you order, because those figures are theirs to define.
Step 3 — Colour: screens are RGB, print is CMYK
Your monitor shows colour as light (RGB); commercial printing lays down ink (CMYK). Some saturated screen colours — electric blues and greens especially — cannot be reproduced exactly in ink and will print duller. MSE exports screen images, so treat your first order as a proof: print a small test batch, look at the colours in daylight, and adjust expectations (or artwork) before printing a whole set. This is normal print behaviour, not an MSE fault.
Step 4 — Choose how to print
- At home: works for playtest proxies — print onto paper and sleeve over a basic card. Quality depends entirely on your printer and paper; fine for testing, not a keepsake.
- A print service: for real card stock and cutting, most custom-card designers use a print-on-demand service — MakePlayingCards is a popular one in this hobby — and upload their exported files through its editor. Follow that service’s own size and bleed instructions for the exact product you order.
- Either way: order or print a small proof first. One sheet or one small batch will surface resolution, colour and cutting issues for a fraction of the cost of a full run.
Do those four steps in order — clean PNG export, bleed-aware files, realistic colour expectations, a proof before the full run — and the printed deck will look like the set you designed, not a blurry photocopy of it.