Feedback for Media Manager

[James]

Hi Creators, 

You might have seen that there is a new experience called Media Manager. Feel free to leave your feedback on this evolution, here. 

Thank you. 

[Pixelan]

Love the improvement!

A bug: when downloading artwork, the portrait shaped card was square. See also this thread where others noticed the same. 

Would also be nice if the artwork could be shaped with transparency for example when the product is rounded. Now it always has square corners.

[Wildart]

This is all very well with printed matter, but it is supremely hard to make any cover with the few views/layouts/mockup designs we have on some products. This is because there are parts of the product missing,e.g. necklace(only a tiny part of the chain is shown, no clasp), or there  is a very limited view,e.g. flat example without creases or folds or being worn(such as the scarf ). We could do a lot more if we had a better starting pint. I ,for one, cannot afford fancy programmes which add these things, I use a free one which is limited as yet, in this regard, and takes a lot of time to create such an effect by hand. This makes me not want to even bother. Very Frustrating. I enjoy creating particular physical(non paper) items, but the covers are harder to create than they should be. BTW, most of my sales lately are still for products that have no cover image frome me yet. 🙂

[ElizabethR]

Here's acouple of ideas. Create your own graphic backgrounds. Use the design image with a lowered opacity as a background. 

[Wildart]

thanks Elisabeth, great idea(my last alphabet items doesn't work all the time, hence the s  in your name!! haha)

[LauraLee]

@Wildart,  just another couple of ideas.  I've done very well with Photopea.com, as a photoshop alternative tool.  It's free, and another newer tool to me is here:  https://tools.picsart.com/  for quick and easy background removal.  Both are free, and Photopea gets updated with cool new tools every day.  One particular feature that I like to use, for jewelry esp is doing a solid black background, so that the jewelry really stands out.  Here's my example:  https://www.zazzle.com/victorian_rose_ephemera_earrings-256504924730400258   Hopefully you've got a good image with background removed to do this.  But, it doesn't matter that it's cut off the top, if you try to do like my example. 

A lot of designers here will say this, that there's no need to go buy expensive software, because now, there's so many free software programs online that are really good at removing backgrounds. 

I've found that just blurring a background, and adding your product on top, does a beautiful job.  As long as it has a sharp product image as the main feature, you're good.  Here's an example of this:  https://www.zazzle.com/american_football_sport_scrapbook_collector_album_3_ring_binder-1270822527849... 

Hope this helps.

[Wildart]

I will work through this thank you, I just tried background remover its pretty good thank you

[ColsCreations]

@LauraLee 

Thanks for sharing the picsart site, there are quite a few tools there that look very promising, I am looking forward to trying them out.

[tarasmp]

Thanks for sharing the tools you use Laura. I'll check them out (might be a life saver!) as I'm on a quest to cut down on insane graphic creation work (when done manually, it takes a lot of time, time that is better spent elsewhere in the business I think)

[DesertSky]

Thanks so much! I love the ability to add more than one cover photo and captions! These are really nice improvements. My only other comment is that I wish we had the ability to download product images with a transparent background. When I first saw the check box I was thrilled, but then realized it says change transparent to white, not white to transparent. My fingers are still crossed for downloading with a transparent background. Please consider it and thanks for the new changes, great job! 

[tiffjamaica]

Overall, I think it's a great update!  First use is on an invitation. In the downloads, there are no options for digital photos (like the hand with the phone or the ipad).   Can those be included in the downloads - I'd think that would be a great use of multiple cover photos to show off printed vs. digital.   

[ColsCreations]

Just going to drop the three other threads on this new feature here in the official one.

Feedback for Media Manager [Official Thread - General Discussion]  <-- You Are Here
Media Manager [Store Management]  
New Media Manager Cover Photos [Ask a Question]
New Cover Media Manager and Download images Option [General Discussion]

[Cat]

Thank you for this!!!

[Barbara]

I've taken my first try at the Media Manager and don't find it any faster, but if I were to do more than one cover, it might be a little quicker to change the featured mockup.

I put in a caption, but why? Where does it show and how is it useful? It doesn't show up with the thumbs on the product page, not that I can find anyway.

Colorwash's Home

[Pixelan]

You can find the caption when people click on the thumbnail to enlarge them, like here:

This is on desktop, I couldn't find the caption on mobile.

[Barbara]

Apparently seeing the caption is good on some screens and not on others. My nicely sized high-resolution monitor doesn't show the caption unless I scroll the enlarged photo, which isn't something I imagine most customers would think to do. And now that I've seen my caption, I'm going to delete it. It's stupid to say what any fool can see. LOL

Colorwash's Home

[Scott]

"which isn't something I imagine most customers would think to do"

We have access to this data, and we've decided to add this new ability for you to upload media and add a caption.

[Barbara]

But the thumbs are right there to click on. I'm still wondering why people would choose to scroll.

Colorwash's Home

[Wildart]

I love the caption idea, because not everyone will read the creator's description in the normal field, and it's a chance to point out our 'point of difference' from other designs, and to explain more         in-depth either the intent of the design, or a story around it's creation.

[tarasmp]

I feel confused about this caption because in my mind this opportunity to tell people about the story of the design is already given in the product description. Are we supposed to repeat the product description here? How would the caption be different from the product description? Do you know? Thanks for your input 🙂

[tarasmp]

Thanks for this photo Pixelan. I was wondering about this....

[Barbara]

Please, please, please, stop the Media dropdown from dropping down, staying there, and covering up what we're doing. Create a little call-out balloon that will alert those who don't yet know about the new facility. The dropdown has become a penance to go through before carrying on with work.

Colorwash's Home

[SwissVillage]

A question about best practices:  If for example you are adding images for a T-shirt with customizable text - for a t-shirt that says "Oh La La" (as template holder text)  should I create illustrations that show different texts to give ideas about different ways to modify the t-shirt, for example by changing it in one image to "Maid of Honor" or whatever?   And if the images are SVG, can we also show the images in different colors to let people know they can do that?

[Fiorenzo]

As I understood, we aren't limited to purely illustrative mockups, so, yes, this is a good way to show customers different variants and give them hints on how to use - and customize - our designs. In your SVG example, you can let customers know that they can change the color within the design tool.

[tarasmp]

Thank you for this idea 🙂

[angelafuller729]

I would add different text, colors and t-shirt styles...

[igiftcenter]

Excellent addition!!!   Only niggle is: I wish the "front" of business cards and notecards / greeting cards  was supplied / downloaded without a background.  Yes I am capable of removing a background but it just adds more work time at a time when time itself is at a premium... having to work / design products and mockups is an enormous task when many designers have thousands and thousands of designs to work on.   That's not a complaint by any measure... I'm SO grateful to have these tools Z is providing.

Adding: I wish the acrylic name plates were available in the angled position without a background... it would be a huge time saver

[Sara_H]

Really sad that the artwork I uploaded on a png transparent background gets downloaded with a white background with this media manager. If it worked before when we downloaded artwork on a transparent png - why can't it work now? Please 🙏

[Connie]

You can uncheck the option to replace transparency with white. I'm having the opposite problem- I wanted to download the artwork with no transparency, but a white background, and it kept downloading with the transparency, even though I checked the box for white.

[Donna]

I have never found a product that downloaded transparent so far. Which product gave you a transparent background?

[ElizabethR]

How do you remove a cover image? We didnt like the background we first used in MarBeth Business, but haven't got all of them changed.

[Sara_H]

@ElizabethR - to remove a cover photo - open the Media Manager - and on the photo you want to remove,  there should be three dots - click on them and the option to remove photo appears
 

[ElizabethR]

Thank you 

[SJoy]

Skeptical and overwhelmed with it at first...But now I think I am starting to love it!  I did a wedding invitation as a test run with just a few images added and viewing it looks so much more inviting and informative for the customer.  I think this is going to be a wonderful addition to the sack of tools Z gives us!

[k8hayes]

I’m just seeing this and reading about it. Is there an example I can see of how it will look ideally?

[DancingPelican]

I also think it would be very helpful to see a few good examples of this new Media Manager with actual good examples of how to best use it, including a few good examples of captions. A picture is worth a thousand words! 

[Donna]

Can this help? https://www.zazzle.com/creators/playbook/media+manager 

[PlayfulPixel]

Not really for me, having read it through twice.
Some of the images of 'Don'ts' are too ambiguous. Being specific about "merchandise products and adding call outs" - it would be helpful to see some good examples of this in action. i.e. what does 'merchandise products mean, what is permitted in a call out.

[Barbara]

I've now read that entire page, and I'm even more unsure of Zazzle's vision. How many ways can you show a postcard? Other than showing front and back at the same time, what's left? Same for a keychains or name tags or a number of other such products? I can see a few different placements for posters--living room, bedroom, nursery, kitchen, etc. depending on the image, maybe the same for a pillow, but surely not for so many of the other products. In other words, isn't the number of views extremely dependent on the way in which a product ls likely to be used?

This statement stuck out: "Lastly, Media Images for the product page could be an opportunity for you to connect with customers on a human level. You may want to answer questions such as “What kinds of designs do you specialize in?” as well as “ Where are you from?” Forging a human connection with customers is a critical element in social commerce!"

What?! Why on earth would we talk about ourselves as if this is a social media site when all we're doing is trying to sell a tumbler? The only time this has ever been important to me is when buying food products on the internet. I want to know the ingredients, how they're produced, and the business's vision and ethics. Here, all we designers do is design. The only time I've been interested in an artist has been in the fine arts.

Beyond this is an underlying concern that, no matter how good our designs, they'll be pushed way down in the listings for lack of multiple views that take huge amounts of time to create and are, essentially, repetitive. Will some of the great designers sales be reduced for lack of unnecessary multiple views? As I said, how many views of a postcard will help it sell?

Colorwash's Home

[CreativeLeahG]

Best way to look at it Barbara is how it is done on Etsy and Amazon. They add dimensions, instructions, and various in-situ images, . A lot of work for one product.