Card centering tool

What centering means

Centering is how evenly the printed picture sits on the card. Measure the blank border on the left and on the right; if they are equal the card is 50/50. If the left border is 6 mm and the right is 4 mm, the left has 60 percent of the total, so the card is 60/40. The same is done top to bottom, and the worse of the two numbers is the one that counts.

How to measure a card here

1. Photograph the card straight on, on a plain dark surface, with the camera directly above it. A tilted photo makes one border look wider than it is.
2. Open the photo. The tool makes a first guess at the edges; press “Find the edges” to try again.
3. Drag the four solid blue lines onto the outside edges of the card, and the four dashed yellow lines onto the edges of the printed frame. Zoom in, and use the nudge buttons for the last pixel.
4. If the card looks rotated, use the straighten slider first.

The limits the grading companies use

PSA allows roughly 55/45 on the front and 75/25 on the back for a Gem Mint 10, 60/40 for a 9 and 65/35 for an 8. PSA tightened the front limit for a 10 from 60/40 to 55/45 in early 2025, so older guides are out of date. Beckett (BGS) grades centering as its own sub-grade and is stricter: commonly cited figures are 50/50 on the front for a 10 and 55/45 for a 9.5. SGC uses about 55/45 for a 10 and 60/40 for a 9 on both sides. These are guides, not promises: graders also look at corners, edges and the surface, and apply judgement.

Common questions

Is my photo uploaded? No. The picture is read by your browser and never leaves your device.

Does it work for the back of the card? Yes. Switch to “Back” and the looser back limits are applied.

What about cards with no border? Full-art cards have no printed frame to measure. Use a fixed feature near each edge, such as a text box or logo, and compare its distance to both sides.

Can I use it for stamps or comics? Yes. Anything with a printed frame inside a cut edge can be measured the same way.