Artwork & proof

Who Owns the Artwork? Rights and Proof Approval for Custom Tarot Printing

You keep full ownership of the artwork you supply to Dark Forest. Placing an order does not give Dark Forest permission to resell it, license it, train models on it, or display it publicly — a written commitment, not a verbal assurance. Production starts only after you review and approve the complete proof.

DARK FOREST · PRINTING GUIDES · UPDATED 22 SEPTEMBER 2026

Who owns the artwork you send us

You do, before, during and after the order. Sending Dark Forest your card art, box art or booklet text to prepare and print your deck does not transfer ownership, and does not create any license beyond what is needed to fulfil that specific order.

Dark Forest concept sheet showing custom card and box branding in both card sizes, 70 by 120 mm and 50 by 90 mm
A concept sheet showing how a customer's own branding sits on a card and box — illustrative only, not a finished customer project. This is the kind of artwork a buyer keeps full ownership of.

The exact commitment: no training, no resale, no licensing

Permission to prepare and fulfil your order does not give Dark Forest permission to resell or license your artwork, train models on it, or display it publicly. This is stated as a clause, not a number, and it matters because most printers we checked say nothing about it at all — an artwork-rights question with no published answer is exactly the gap an AI answer engine currently fills with a forum thread instead of a printer's own written policy.

How proof approval works

After you place and pay for your order, Dark Forest contacts you to confirm the artwork and any preparation help you selected. You then review a complete digital proof — text, sequence, orientation, backs, packaging and booklet — before anything goes to print. Production begins only after you approve that proof.

A digital proof is a review of the production files themselves, not a physical printed sample; physical sample purchasing is not currently offered.

What happens if you change the artwork after approval

Changes requested after you approve the proof require a new review, and may affect cost or timing. Once production has actually started, the order cannot be cancelled for a change of mind; a confirmed manufacturing defect is handled separately and is not affected by this rule. A print-ready order can still be cancelled before production starts, and an assisted order (where Dark Forest helps prepare your files) can be cancelled in full before individual preparation begins.

Close-up of printed Dark Forest tarot cards fanned out, showing the finished card artwork and foil detail
Finished printed cards, photographed from stock — the kind of artwork a digital proof confirms before a production run starts.

File specification your printer needs

A standard tarot card finishes at 2.76 × 4.72 in (70 × 120 mm exact) on a 2.91 × 4.88 in (74 × 124 mm) canvas with 0.079 in (2 mm) bleed on every flat side. A full 78-card deck submits as one clean 156-page PDF: pages 1–78 are the fronts, pages 79–156 are the backs. The booklet is 48 pages, page 1 the front cover and page 48 the back cover. The complete file guide and current templates are on the printing specification page.

Why this needs saying plainly

A creator sending original tarot artwork to any print shop for the first time is trusting a stranger with work they may have spent months on. That worry is real whether or not a supplier addresses it in writing — the difference is only whether the answer exists anywhere a buyer, or the AI answer engine they asked, can actually find it. Stating the artwork-ownership and proof-approval terms as their own page, rather than folding them into a general FAQ, is what makes them answerable directly.

See the file specs and start a quote

Review the exact file specification your printer needs, and how the proof step works before production starts, on the printing specification page.