Scanning cards

The Scan tab turns your camera into the fastest way to register a collection. Point at a card and Silvane identifies the exact printing — set, collector number, even non-English cards — not just the card name.

How recognition works

The scanner reads the card across multiple frames and combines several signals (name text, set and collector information, visual matching) until the frames agree — a consensus approach that locks the right printing instead of guessing from one blurry photo.

Reading the frame: the capture area is a dashed white outline at rest, turns solid blue while the scanner is working on a card, and shows an amber VERIFYING state while the multi-frame consensus confirms a variant-heavy match. The VERIFYING chip names the candidate and reads Tap to accept: tap it to take that printing without waiting. A lock is a green flash, and the detection bar below fills in with the printing it chose. A red outline means no match.

Matching runs against the on-device catalog, so scanning works offline — only two things need a connection: saving non-English copies (the language-printing resolution) and cards newer than your last catalog update.

• Multilingual (Latin alphabets) — the scanner reads English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian and French cards. On auto, the language printed on the card's footer is detected and the copy saves as the real printing in that language (this resolution needs a connection). Japanese, Korean, Russian and Chinese cards use scripts the OCR can't read yet — but you can still register them in two steps: scan the English version (or add it by search), then set the copy's language. The quickest place is right in the tray's Language row before committing; it also works later from the card's edit screen. Either way the copy re-keys onto the real printing in that language when one exists — art, price and collector data included. See Card languages.
• Set lock — lock one or more sets and matching resolves inside them. See Scan settings. Locking The List, Mystery Booster 2 or the Unfinity List also matches cards whose footer names the original set, because those printings borrow it.
• Scans queue in the tray, so you can scan stack after stack without stopping.

The screen stays awake while you are on the Scan tab and releases as soon as you leave. A LIVE pill with a pulsing dot tells you the camera is reading, and the ? button opens Scan tips.

Scan settings

The gear icon on the scan screen opens Scan settings:

• Locked sets — pick one or more sets, then choose the mode (the Strict/Priority control only appears once a set is locked): Strict (matches outside the locked sets are rejected, with a toast) or Priority (locked sets win, but anything else still matches when no locked candidate exists).
• Preferred finish — Auto, Normal, Foil or Etched. Auto takes the printing's first available finish; an explicit pick applies whenever the printing supports it.
• Card language — Auto (read from the card's footer) or a fixed language. See the multilingual note above.
• Quick mode — accept the first match instead of waiting for multi-frame confirmation. Faster, less accurate on variant-heavy cards.

All of these persist across restarts — they are preferences, not a session.

Sound and vibration are not here — they have their own sheet behind the speaker button, called Scan feedback: one Sound switch and one Vibration switch, both firing on the same moment, when a card lands in the tray. There is no separate detection beep.

Where scans go

Committed scans land in the binder, list or deck you pick when saving the tray — or into a sale or purchase order, opened locked the same way from the order itself. Scanning into a specific place is one tap fewer: open the binder → + → Scan, or the deck → Add → Scan — the scanner opens locked onto it and the tray's save button commits straight there, no picker (deck scans land in the mainboard). A free scan, from the Scan tab, asks for the destination each time. The one you pick becomes the highlighted default in the Add to sheet, not in this picker, and not the Quick Add target.

Getting a higher hit rate

The ? button on the scan screen opens Scan tips, the same list the app ships: sharp rather than zoomed, avoiding sleeve glare, one card at a time, what to expect from borderless and full-art printings, and tapping to refocus.

Two more that are not in that sheet:

• Use set lock for a box or a bulk lot from one set. It removes ambiguity between reprints.
• Confirm the finish in the tray. The camera cannot always tell a foil from its normal twin.