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I'm kind of new to Gimp and I try to make a custom card game. I have made many cards in poker format that are made of multiple layers that i export as png. I now found a site where I could print them, but they need the pngs with a bigger border to print them (like 1 or 2 cm added on each side for cutting reasons), so I could now either go over every card I made, resize the canvas and save it as another Gimp-Project to still have the poker-format and also the print format for the website. But this would mean I now have two projects per card that I have to maintain if i want to change something on the card. I'm hoping there is an easier way like having the bigger-border project reference the other one so I only need to change the one when I need to update something. Is this possible?

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Not as far as I know.

You can batch-process your cards with ImageMagick to add the required border, something like this that you put in a shell script:

convert Card.png -bordercolor white -border 118x118 Print-Card.png

(this adds a 118px border around the image, and 118px is 1cm @ 300PPI)

However, the required size for display (screens around 100-150PPI) or print (300PPI) isn't the same, so if you want good quality output you should create the cards in print size, and batch crop & resize them for display.

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  • I try to do it with that, thanks
    – Urr4
    Commented Jun 20 at 10:31
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A serious suggestion: Get Scribus and learn how to generate a printable PDF with it. In Scribus all images can be linked files. GIMP cannot generate ready-to-print files in CMYK color format, so your options to select the printshop are limited if you plan to make only PNGs or other RGB files. CMYK printing cannot output all bright colors, but working in Scribus makes possible to design with printable colors. That's the common working method.

Professional designers must see beforehand reliably what colors the printing will produce. Scribus has color management which is essential for getting predictable results and being able to design directly with printable colors. It's the right time study a little, I presume!

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  • Thanks, I look into it. I have however already test-printed some cards that I created as described (copy Gimp project and make bigger border on one of them) and they look great, so I dont really understand the part about Gimp not being able to generate ready-to-print files. My problem currently is that I already have a lot of cards as Gimp-projects (about 200) and think about "fixing" them instead of starting from the beginning with another tool.
    – Urr4
    Commented Jun 6 at 11:05
  • GIMP cannot output files in CMYK color system with an embedded proper print process color profile. Generally printers want color managed CMYK mode PDFs to avoid any useless discussions afterwards like "you have flattened my vibrant colors to lifeless crap. I do not pay a single penny!" Modern GIMP versions fortunately can show what common CMYK print processes would generate after RGB to CMYK conversion done by the printer if one bothers to turn the color management ON and knows the forthcoming CMYK print process color profile.
    – user 8922027
    Commented Jun 6 at 18:20
  • (continued) CMYK printing generally doesn't output bright blue nor green. At least talk with your printer beforehand of the subject. But if the printer has already proven they print your colors right and the price is good, too, then go on with them.
    – user 8922027
    Commented Jun 6 at 18:24

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