As you know, we recently rolled out a new and improved version of our flagship web-to-print solution. The solution is perfect for selling personalized corporate gifts and promotional items, custom merchandise dealers, garment decorators, and other print service providers. Our solution does not only support product personalization but also works as a product configurator where you can build a product by choosing the variants of different parts and then further personalize it.
There are two features in this version that deserve a special mention. The first one is the auto-color detection option and the second is white background remover. Both features enable the customers to make image modifications with ease and personalize as well as offload tons of work for printers in prepress.
The story behind the features
Remove white background is one of the most sought-after features and is well-liked by our clients as well. If you are wondering why, then here is the reason:
When a user comes to edit or personalize a product on your online print shop, they often upload their logo or images with a background. Especially the logo images come with a white background, and they do not want them to be printed as is. So, either they must use an external software to remove the background and upload the image again or put a special instruction to the printer to remove the white background.
And when the printer receives such an order, this irks the printer as they have to remove the background with the help of a professional graphics designer and regenerate the artwork for approval – both of which cost money and time.
Therefore, to alleviate this common pain point, we created the “Remove White Background” feature within the web-to-print design tool and users can now upload their logo/image and remove the unwanted background color to check the real-time preview. That way, the printer will also receive a ready-to-print image without a background.
This feature has been immensely appreciated by our clients and has undoubtedly become our USP. It eases up both customer and printer tasks and saves a lot of time and money for both.
Similarly, the auto-color detector feature in our software is used for several purposes, mainly:
It helps printers to restrict the number of colors in artwork to be printed.
For example, if you as a printer want to restrict the use of number of colors in the artwork designed by customers, let’s say to maximum four colors, then this feature can help customers by detecting all the colors available in the image uploaded by them, and help them replace the unwanted colors and transform the image in real-time for preview before finalizing the artwork for order.
Support for PMS colors
If you print any artwork using specific PMS colors only, then this feature is a must for getting print-ready artwork with order. First, you can configure your PMS color pallet from web-to-print admin panel and configure desired products accordingly so that your customers can only use available PMS colors for artwork designing. Now when a customer uploads a logo or image, the auto color detector detects the logo colors and allows the customer to replace each one with a matching PMS color. Thus, the whole artwork remains print friendly.
Now, how does it help the customers?
As soon as a customer uploads an image, the color detect feature automatically detects all the colors available in that image. Once that is done, they can easily change the detected colors and replace each one with a new colour to transform the image.
Let us understand how it works: if a user has a logo with three colors in it (e.g. blue, green and red), however they want the logo to be printed in black, they can just replace each color with black and it’s done. Because of the easy process, our auto-color detection feature is widely loved!
Benefits of auto-color detection feature
1. Easy to use
Color mapping is easy even for those without extensive experience in graphics designing. Plus, it is possible to preview the results immediately and modify the mapping until the desired color effect is obtained.
On design tool, you just upload a picture and transform it into a new image using desired colors, just in seconds. Plus, our online product designer software is all about making it easy for amateurs to customize their designs. So, yes. Using the color mapping feature on our platform is easy.
2. Flexibility
The user can control exactly which parts of the color spectrum are used in the mapping by choosing the right clusters. If you want a different shade from an image, it is possible to fetch it using “pick color” feature in the design tool.
3. Easy color tweaking
If the colors in the target image are somewhat dull, color mapping can quickly brighten it up rather than the user having to tweak the target image colors individually. It is all about empowering our users with options. We not only let them experiment with templates and designs but also the colors that go in them.
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4. Creating surreal effects
By mapping an incongruous set of colors to an otherwise ordinary picture, the auto-color detector can lead to surreal, even grotesque results that are often highly effective in art photography. For instance, an ordinary t-shirt can be given a bilious-yellow tinge to stand out visually. It is incredible how this feature works so well!
5. Picture background removal
In products like mugs, t-shirts, mobile covers, etc. where elements are to be printed and not the image with background, this feature comes handy.
Wrapping it up
The earlier versions of our web to print solution indeed had a decent photo editor, which was apt for users to use it on-the-fly. But with this new version and especially with the auto-color detector, we want to give personalized product buyers an even greater chance to personalize artwork designs and experiment with colors however they like. To know more about this feature, please write to us at [email protected].
