IDOLISE INFORMATION

All of the following information has been compiled and organized to help current and upcoming/interested members find everything they need to enjoy Idolise and all of its features. If you can't find exactly what you're looking for, please feel free to contact us and we'll reply as quickly as possible. If you prefer to get a hold of us through the forum, we also have a topic for general questions. Make sure you double check all the information pages and information threads on the forum, too!

introduction getting started
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leveling ups shop & power-ups
era masteries donation guidelines

DONATIONS

At Idolise, we are always accepting donations for brand new decks. However, as we are allowing others to help out by doing this, there are some guidelines (which will be listed below) that we ask donors to follow in order to keep things as consistent as possible. Currently, members are allowed to donate five decks per month.

era donations
Reward: 5 random cards per 1 donation.

  • For the time being, nothing released before 2015 will be accepted. This is to keep your deck maker from crying over her mouse and keyboard. Exceptions may be made later for artists who had a variety of fansites and high quality pictures, but 2015 is the jumping off point until we say otherwise.

  • Please only include high quality and un-edited images in donations! If it has a bunch of filters or looks like an edit you'd find on Tumblr, delete it from the zip or do a reverse Google Image search to find the original image. If you have any questions regarding this, please do not hesitate to ask!

  • We very much prefer images to be fantakens/candids but high quality news photos (NOT PHOTOSHOOTS, but rather images taken during music shows or arrival, press conferences, etc) and the like are allowed if you can't find enough of the former. Anything too low quality or are non-fantakens/news photos will not be used! This means no selcas, photoshoots, screencaps, teasers or magazine scans.

  • Zips must contain at least 70-80 images but more is always welcome! Please try your best to include all dates possible in that promotional period. The more images the merrier, as variety will create the best deck possible. We want to show personality off in our era decks and we can't do that if you only give us half the dates. If we notice dates missing, we will request you add more images to the donation.

    • Only include images taken during the artist's promotion period and up until 2 months after their final goodbye stages on music shows. If you're unsure, check for images on an fyeah blog or something similar that tags photos with dates to ensure they were taken during the correct time frame.
  • Members are only allowed to donate 2 decks a month of artists from the same group without exceeding our limit of 1 deck per member a month. This means that you are free to donate EXO's Lay and EXO's Baekhyun, but not 2 decks of EXO's Suho. 2 decks per artist also applies to music videos. You can not donate two EXO eras and two EXO music videos. 2 eras OR 1 music video and 1 era OR 2 music videos.

  • Decks must be claimed here, in the monthly Deck Claims topic and approved before you donate them. Please do not hand a donation in before it is approved. Your admin team really want to ensure that claims are not overlooked and therefore a waste of your time, should there be accidental overlap. Please keep in mind that we are human and should we miss your post or make a mistake, we can be contacted via the Help Desk forum or our Twitter.

  • Before putting your donation into a zip, make sure all the images are already in a folder labelled with the name of the artist, the name of the member, and the song title. Please write these details clearly so that we know what donation to look for in our downloads folder! (ex: wanna one - daniel (energetic).zip )

IMPORTANT NOTES:
  • We'll only allow separate decks for repackages/follow up songs if the differences in visuals/concept have changed drastically (ie. EXO's Wolf and Growl would get two different era decks because the hair, outfits, etc. were all drastically different from the other even though Growl was a repackage of Wolf).

  • For artists who are promoting a full length album or EP without the help of music shows, we will be allowing members to claim these eras 3 months after the release of their album. As there will be no goodbye stage for these artists, we hope to give enough time for images to surface. (ex: If an artist releases an album on January 1st and does not promote through music shows, members will be able to claim this artist on April 2nd at 12am, midnight)

  • If an era is currently ongoing, please wait until 2 months have passed after the artist's last goodbye stage on music shows before claiming and donating decks for that era. This is to ensure that there are more images to be included in the donation! Please follow the below example if you're confused and do not hesitate to contact us via the forum or our Twitter.

    For example: If an artist has their FINAL goodbye stage for their most recent era on October 11th then the earliest day that someone could claim a deck from that era would be December 12th at 12AM (This is midnight. Prepare your claim on December 11th at 11:59pm and then hit send at midnight. This is a new day.) as that would be 2 months from the last goodbye stage. So, just to be clear, the minute December 12th hits, you are free to claim this deck.

  • PLEASE NOTE (AS OF SEPT 2018): In an attempt to provide equal opportunities for all fans, you may no longer claim more than one deck of a newly available era. At midnight, when a new era is available for donation, you may only claim one of those decks for yourself. 24 hours later, you're free to claim an additional deck (or two, if you haven't claimed one in the first place).

  • The only time that the above rule is not followed is when an artist has a comeback before that 2 month period. In this case, members are free to claim the era as soon as the artist has completed their first music show. If an artist has their comeback on October 1st, you must wait until October 2nd, 12 AM (MIDNIGHT) on the clock above our main layout, regardless of what timezone you are in.

  • Be warned that Mega sometimes deletes files at random so if that happens to be the case for you, please reupload your donation and link us the new download ASAP! We don't download donations until we're ready to make those decks so please do not delete your donations before they've been marked as complete, either (or at all, if possible).

music video donations
Reward: 3 random cards per 1 donation.

  • In an effort to make things as fair as possible, members may not donate more than 2 music videos from the same artist each month. Please don't try to find loopholes! If you donate 2 SHINee music videos, you can not donate a Taemin music video as well. 2 decks per artist also applies to era donations. You can not donate two EXO eras and two EXO music videos. 2 eras OR 1 music video and 1 era OR 2 music videos.

  • Members must wait until a music video has been released for a day before they can donate it. If a music video is released on Tuesday, you must wait until the forum clock says Wednesday.
  • Music videos must be official artist releases, and must be Korean. For the time being, we will not allow any Chinese versions of songs, Japanese versions or songs, or original releases from other countries. The rule of thumb is: If it was released and promoted in Korea, it should be fine, but we have our Twitter should you have any quick questions or concerns.

  • Music video decks are literally just screencaps taken of the music video itself.

  • Please avoid leaving blurry and unusable screencaps in your donations. Please keep your donations under 300 screencaps. This rule was implemented before our official open, so if you have old donations with more than that, please don't worry about it or feel the need to change it!

  • Decks must be claimed here, in the monthly Deck Claims topic and approved before you donate them. Please do not hand a donation in before it is approved. Your admin team really want to ensure that claims are not overlooked and therefore a waste of your time, should there be accidental overlap. Please keep in mind that we are human and should we miss your post or make a mistake, we can be contacted via the Help Desk forum or our Twitter.

other notable information

  • All members are eligable for a choice card after 5 donations. This can be 1 donation in January and the other 4 in May. It is your overall donation count, regardless of when it was donated or what you donated. Please take responsibility for these yourself, as we will not really be handing them out in your rewards. If you'd like to mention your choice card in your donation topic, that's absolutely acceptable!

  • You do not have a full month to donate, unless you happen to claim on the first day. Donations are reset as the month ends, so claims that were never donated will be removed from our claims list each and every month with our monthly update.

  • PLEASE AVOID LAST MINUTE CLAIMS. The month end is incredibly busy for your admin team and our staff, so claims that are handed in on the last day of the month may not be accepted because they were not noticed. This also puts you on the clock, so it is best to avoid.

  • We aren't evil and we understand that you are all human, so if members ever need an extension for good reason, we all allow you a few extra hours, up to an additional 24. Please don't ask for an extension unless you are serious about donating that deck.

era donations: good vs bad

Because a lot of our information may be a little unclear, we recommend that users read this guide before they attempt their first deck donation or reference it while they're compiling their folder. We understand that some artists have a much larger variety of high quality photos available, and that some donations are just a lot easier to make, but these guidelines are necessary in helping you get your donation right the first time. These guidelines are here to not only help you determine which images are worth adding to a donation, but which photos are better off being left behind as well. The more photos you add that can't be used usually means the more time it takes me to sort through your donation to make a deck out of it.

AGAIN, we only use fan taken images or news photos that are candid (taken during performances, arrivals, press conferences: never photoshoots, selcas, magazine scans, teasers, etc), so please do not include images that are otherwise just going to be passed over and rejected!

That being said, I think we can all agree that the more photos, the better. Variety is a beautiful thing. But a 100+ photo donation is entirely worthless if I can't use most of the photos in it. Sorting through a difficult donation causes me to take longer to make those decks, or just give up entirely and add it back to the queue for when I'm being ambitious.

If there are photos you really love and you are unsure of, add them to the donation. But make sure there are enough for-sure photos in there, otherwise it might be a little while before your deck comes out.

bad images

If needed, clicking the image thumbnails will make them larger.

The above photos may look different, but they have some very important in common. Both are too close for me to work with. Although the left photo is beautifully lit and the quality is incredible, there is absolutely no way I'd be able to crop this into our deck template. The photo on the right could potentially be color corrected to match what a normal deck would look like, and it is a little further away, it would still cause me a lot of trouble. It's a little too off center, and if you look below, you can get a better idea of just how they'd pan out as cards.

On the left side, we have an imagine that would genuinely be otherwise perfect if not for how close it is. Because it literally can not be cropped any other way, we're left staying close. In our deck template, we'd end up covering his chin or giving up his entire forehead. With how consistently I like to crop my decks, I genuinely believe this sort of image is a waste of time. On the right side, we have an imagine that would require a lot of editing if we decided it was necessary for the deck. The photo is incredibly yellow and, as if that wasn't bad enough, it is also off center. This imagine can't be easily cropped and in order to center the card, we would have to crop even closer than we've already been forced to.

Now that we've covered images that are too close, I want to dive into some photos that may normally cause some confusion while you're scrolling by. A few of these would actually be considered good photos if you were scraping the bottom of the barrel for those lesser known groups, but a majority of the groups who are promoting right now have amazing fansites, so I would still prefer we avoid these if at all possible.

I've chosen all of the above images for different reasons. More or less.

The very first image (although VERY CUTE) is a nearly impossible fix. For me, anyway. Even if I could fix the color of this photo to bring it back to a skin tone, I don't think I'd be able to easily fix the inconsistent lighting. I'm sure there would still be uneven and bright patches on their faces where the light is hitting them. Scroll by photos like this. They do not belong in your donation! ♥

The second photo is another example of an image that is too close. It's beautiful, but it would throw the deck off because of how I'd be forced to crop.

Our third photo is a little bit different. I had originally added it into the guide as another photo with lighting issues. Although this image would be easy to fix and color match with the rest of the deck, I would still prefer that you avoid images that may throw a donation off. If you're scrolling through your donation and you see a photo like this, that is much darker than most fan taken photos, just delete it. Of course, with that being said, this is an excellent example of a photo that could be salvaged for your lesser known groups, or groups with a lack of fansites.

In our fourth image, this angel wearing a flower crown is so beautiful that I might just cry, but this image has a slight coloring issue. It's a little bit on the green (?) side and while that could be fixed if need be... I would prefer to do as little editing to someone else's photos as possible.

The next photo is in the same boat as our last. It's beautifully taken and the quality is really great, but it would mean color correcting to make sure it meshes with the rest of our deck.

The last photo I'm including today is super cute, but would take a lot of color correcting to get back his skin tone and it is also a little too close to crop with ease. Images like this are a real shame and they often give the appreciance that they can be cropped... They're tricking you!

One issue with a lot of portrait/vertical photos is that they're often more difficult for us to crop than those that are landscape/horizontal. All of the above examples are too close for us to crop. There are a few with lighting/coloring issues, but even more than that, the closeness is what I was focusing on when I decided on these photos. I think that most people will be able to get a better idea of what to avoid from the above images.

good images

So let's move on to the good examples of what I'm always happy to see in a donation. I am not going to really bother talking about the why behind the choices I've made for good images, because I think that the bad images have already filled you in enough. All of the below images require no real editing on my part. They're all going to be easy to crop because they give me a ton of wiggle room on either side of his cute little head. The less editing I have to do, the better. We're seeking photos that will easily slide into our deck template without making a card look like it belongs to another TCG.


There's a lot less to say about images that I consider easy to work with. I've chosen the above and below photos because of their lighting and how easy they are to crop. None of these photos are too close and they wouldn't take any effort at all to slide into our deck template. No real editing necessary!

If there's only final thing I can leave with everyone, it is that not all donations are going to be easy. Not everyone is as blessed as me with Yoon Jeonghan and his 50 beautiful fansites. I encourage all of you to just do your best. If you're having a hard time finding photos or you just need advice, reach out to your admin team here on the forum or through our Twitter and we will do everything we can to help make your bias decks come true.