Feedback for New Design Tool Feature: Image Control

[James]

Hi Creators, 

We know some of you have noticed the new tool featured on the design tool for image manipulation, and we hope you have enjoyed them. If not, check out the full details of the tools along with a little tutorial, here. 

We would love your feedback on this update and any suggestions you might have. 

Thank you. 

[Echo]

I constantly find myself switching back and forth between locking and unlocking the aspect ratio in the settings. When I have it on, the text size changes when I expand or reduce the length of the text area, so I have to switch it off for texts. However, when I want to change the size of the images and then lock them in place, they become distorted, so I have to switch the aspect ratio back on for images. It's frustrating. 

[ColsCreations]

I honestly do not know if this is not functioning properly for me (Firefox on a Win10 laptop) or if it's the language being used tripping me up. To me, resize, crop, and reshape are three distinctly different things with "reshape" meaning you're stretching or smushing the image and thus deforming it in some way even if it's intentional.

In the Design Tool, I can resize and I can crop but I can't reshape regardless of the key combinations used. It occurred one time by accident and I posted about that here including screenshot, but A) I can't make it happen again on purpose with any image and B) though it's horizontally stretched in the Design Tool the product preview doesn't show it that way. This is a link to the test product shown in that screenshot so you can see how messed up the preview is compared to the design tool view. (More than just that one image is messed up.)

So, I don't know if I am supposed to be able to actually reshape images with this new feature, or if Zazzle is using "crop" and "reshape" as interchangeable terms leading me to believe we can do something we can't actually do. And if you do actually mean reshape - as in deform the image - then either I am missing a key step to make that happen or it's just not agreeing with my browser.

Next, I'm sorry but this is way too much to have as the default operations:

Even expert experienced Creators are going to need a cheat-cheat to remember what does what. The average internet user (i.e - potential customer) probably has an instinctive understanding by now that drag handles on something = being able to change the size of it. Period. It is my opinion that this is going to cause major and totally unnecessary frustration so I am vehemently against this bag of tricks being the default way of operation.

Even if a determined customer enters the Design Tool to tweak their image to better fit the design they chose, gets frustrated by unexpected things happening to the image, and chooses to actually look at the Help option - there is no help there, just an overwhelming list of Shortcut keyboard combinations, which remains the same whether you have Locked Aspect Ratio checked or not in settings. Which leads to needing to know to click Settings and then check Lock Aspect Ratio for operations to return to normal basic drag-to-resize behavior. The option needs to be labeled clearer, like "Activate Advanced Resizing Mode" or something, and then if you're in Basic Mode, show only the shortcuts that actually apply to that mode in the shortcut list.

Creators who frequent the forums will perhaps notice and learn all this but everyone else including potential buyers will not. Whatever else you bring to this new advanced feature, just please set it as an option the user will knowingly have to check, and not as the Default.

[PAZP]

Well said @ColsCreations 

[Cat]

Honestly, just reading through the announcement and watching the video overwhelmed me to the point that I haven't yet been brave enough to play with it!

[KeegansCreation]

What ColCreations said. This features needs to be an option, not the default. Like everyone else, I stumbled on this by accident and was so flummoxed that I just used +/- to resize which thank goodness still works as expected.

[almdrs]

I don't like it. Is there any mainstream image editor that has the same tool to crop and resize images?
I think it should follow the standards. People will get confused.
Just my opinion. 

[LMGildersleeve]

---

"The feature is on by default, but we have included an option to “Lock aspect ratio” in the settings for users who prefer the original controls."

So yes, you can turn off the default.

---

[wheresthekarma]

Hi LM, 
In which settings? I went to the template and couldn't find this option anywhere and then went into the settings tab and couldn't find it either. 

[Barbara]

In order to make sure text in a template doesn't impinge on the design, we often have to resize the box around it--NOT resize the text itself. It's become confusing to have to unlock the aspect ratio before touching the bounding box whereas, before, it worked fine.

Colorwash's Home

[Cat]

OK, I finally made myself play with it. I dunno. I guess it's sorta groovy and mildly interesting, but I don't think it's very helpful. 

For me as a designer, what would be helpful would be to be able to numerically set the height and width of an image. One common example is that I have a rectangular image that I want to crop so it's square... as far as I know, there's no easy way to do that in the design tool. So generally I resort to cropping the image myself and then uploading it so that I can be sure it's square. This feature basically heads more in the direction of having to eyeball everything, which doesn't give much precision and is really the opposite of what I need as a designer.

In terms of the customer... well, for a variety of reasons I don't see this helping them much. I don't think that people are going to intuitively know to try holding down the control or alt key when dragging the corners, and while I guess that information is sorta available under help > shortcuts, it's a real treasure hunt to find it even if you know it's there. I also wonder how this functions for users on a phone - you can't hit shift or control or alt while dragging on a phone can you? And finally, this does nothing to address the main problem that customers have with editing images, and that's the fact that if there are layers on top of the image (like a frame, for example) it's impossible to grab the image to do anything with it. 

Anyhow, that's my 2 cents!

[Cat]

Adding to my thoughts... what would be very helpful for customers is if there was a popup that appeared when they replaced a placeholder image with their own, and in that popup they could size/position their image within the outline of the placeholder. 

That would allow them to have some control over image placement without having to enter the design tool, which would be much simpler for them and would prevent them from completely messing up the design by attempting to position their picture.

[Fiorenzo]

This has already been wished in the old forums by many, and I wholeheartedly support it. Together with the ability to hide/unhide a template image in the personalization form, so we can add placeholders that can be turned off (e.g. optional logos), or offer a choice of images (e.g. alphabet letters/monograms) that can be selected by a radio button or by simply unhiding the desired image (e.g. chosen character).

[creativebunny]

It's a great new idea, but I do find a problem when trying to simply resize. When I try to resize, my images mistakenly start cropping along with the resize and that can be a little frustrating.

[Fiorenzo]

You need to hold down the Shift key while dragging in order to just resize the image while maintaining its aspect ratio.

@James This is exactly the reason, why you should invert the logic. Make the standard resizing behavior default and without the need for keys, and offer the new improved functionality in combination with the Shift key. You managed to confuse even experienced professionals like me, imagine the occasional customer trying to simply resize an image the common way. P.S. The AR locking setting is more annoying and limiting than useful.

[Fiorenzo]

In case you didn't see it (got a bit buried), here's my original feedback on the matter, sent before I had knowledge of all functionality:

https://community.zazzle.com/t5/general-zazzle-discussion/new-image-resizing-amp-cropping-behavior-i... 

After your new info, and if you don't want to offer a stretching functionality, I would just invert the logic: Make the AR resize default again and work without the use of the Shift key (because that's what most users - if not all - will expect), and offer your new functionality in combination with the Shift key. You can also get rid of the lock aspect ratio setting while at it because it's more limiting than useful and wouldn't be needed anyway.

[Fiorenzo]

@James Discovered serious issues today in combination with image templates that contain placeholders or changeable default images with the properties FILL and FIT: the images are in some cases stretched (plus other issues). The biggest issue is: it affects published products, and the problem is within the designer, the previews look fine. This makes it difficult to spot but it may cause printing issues.

I have extensively tested the issues today and prepared some screenshots and feedback, which I will post tomorrow in the tech forum in detail (almost midnight here). If you want to have a look in the meantime, check out the following shots and products. Note: you need to enter the designer to see the problem (edit).

Example 1 - Stretched image in published Foil Card: https://www.zazzle.com/winter_tales_kitten_red_cardinal_bird_in_snow_foil_holiday_card-2560784232002... 

 Example 2, placeholder in pillow: https://www.zazzle.com/2_pet_photo_keepsake_gold_purple_vintage_frame_throw_pillow-18959978131822835... 

Example 3 - Logo in folded Card:  https://www.zazzle.com/white_horse_dove_on_ice_fairytale_christmas_holiday_card-256572574319227906 

 Note: it affects products that have been published BEFORE the changes. Newly published products work fine. More tomorrow.

[Scott]

We're aware of the issue. It doesn't affect printing, and we'll have a fix for it very soon.

If your post for the Tech forum is already mostly written up you're welcome to post it anyways, and I'll pass it along to engineering so that they can verify that our fix will solve the issues that you're seeing.

[Fiorenzo]

Thank you for the quick reply, Scott. No, I spent a few hours testing and preparing the shots, didn't write the post yet. Since you are already aware and working on it, you can reply when it is solved and I'll have a second look.

There is one more problem concerning placeholders in templates with the option FIT - e.g. for embedding logos: when you change the image, now it changes also the size of the template canvas. When the new image is narrower than the template canvas, e.g. a square logo that gets fit into a rectangular template, the canvas width reduces to the width of the square image. If you change this again with a horizontal rectangular image/logo, that new logo becomes smaller and gets fit within that narrower canvas. This also works wrongly within the designer only. If you change the images through the personalize form, it works well. If you aren't aware of this one, tell me, and I'll post a detailed report tomorrow.

[JessicaAmber]

I do not see a way to remove crop / aspect ratio edits from a photo besides dragging the Crop handles, which is not ideal because you can easily still end up with some edge pixels cropped in that way. I think there should be an image reset button somewhere please.