Hey guys and Alex,
This has always been a problem, but the more orders and more traffic my site gets, the more I am seeing a serious need to fix this issue.
Users uploading artwork to the site where color count is needed is just a real problem at the moment. Here is currently what we get phone calls, chats and e-mails about probably 5-6 times a day. The user uploads their "1 color design" and once it uploads, the design tool tells them they have 47580 unique colors in their design. This right here throws them for a loop and many people just leave the site because of this, the others are the ones making the calls, emails etc. On our end, we of course know there must be some kind of color variances on edges and such or because it is low resolution, it is causing so many colors to show up.
The designer then asks if they want to reduce the colors in their design. Most people are like why am I reducing my design when it is just 1 color. It then also gets confusing when there is a background to their image. For example, they may have a 1 color design "white, on black", so they reduce it down to 1 color and do not realize it needs to be 2.
All of these things are extremely confusing. The other issue with this is when someone does upload artwork that may be low resolution or they reduce the colors, the color reduction is causing the images to be extremely pixelated. We have to refund orders all the time because we will print something for someone thinking that is just the file they uploaded, and then they will send us what they uploaded before the color reduction, and it is not pixelated at all. As you would think with apparel, this is very costly when we have to give refunds because we did not print their apparel to their liking (thousands of dollars in refunds in the last year and a half). Also, if there was someway we could access their orginal artwork before they color reduce, that would help a ton because then it would not be pixelated.
I really think the color selection of user artwork needs to be revisited and reworked. I believe it is probably costing everyone sales and it would really make the user experience much better if we could rework how users upload. I suggest looking at these sites (all apparel because that is my industry, but I am sure it would help everyone):
www.customink.com
www.uberprints.com
www.ooshirts.com
These sites all have you upload your artwork and then once it uploads, they will have colors for you to either choose from and/or allow you to specify how many colors are in your design. I think this would be a great direction to head to as we just have so many headaches on a daily basis because of this issue. I don't think it should be in the hands of the user that much that they have to figure out all this stuff just so they can get their 1 color design on a shirt. I hope this all makes sense. The drawback to this and not sure how the above companies deal with this, but I am sure you get artwork uploaded and paid for when people select 1 color print and really they may have a full color image instead. That would be the only drawback to this that I can see.
Would love to hear everyones thoughts and if anyone else has the same pixelation issues as we do or the customer complaints.