Real Issues with user uploaded artwork and color count

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.

Hello,

this is just a quick reply to actually notify I'm going to look at all of this, but cannot now.
I am currently in Munich doing the FESPA (2nd day today), then will have to get ready to depart for Chicago IRCE show).
Should be back home afterr the show rush by mid June.

I willl not have much chances of testing anything before that date, especially because I cannot guarantee being online often enough to quickly revert eventual side issues of applied solutions.

That said, back on topic, the main issue here is because color count is so important to you.
Most of the RTD base is digital though, that's why the problem you're pushing here is not looking "global" for now.

We (me and you) already found neat solutions in past. Based on the extra experience you now have with the RTD, I think it would be time to properly meet once more and look at this all.

However, you had the bad luck of showing again right in the middle of the most hard tradeshow period ever (3 in a row!), so this meeting will very hardly happen before mid June when I'll be definitively back.
While leaving this thread open for extra discussions, plz remember to ping me by then.

Now getting ready to face day 2 of the FESPA!

Alex

Sounds great Alex. Cannot wait to talk this through with you. Just an example - had someone contact me right now, had incredibly high resolution artwork (way better than was needed to print). We could get the background removed in the designer, so I had him send me the file and I removed the background. We both uploaded it and still got thousands of colors. We both reduced it and reduced it down to 1, 2, and 3 colors and they all came out to a blank box. Just really frustrating and it makes us look bad and like RTD doesn't work at all. Had to take the order through email instead.

If we just could just on the RTD end of things allow us to have it how it is right now or maybe a system where they uploaded it and it doesn't give the option to reduce but rather allows them to select how many colors are in their design (and maybe even pick the colors). Just has to be a better method than we have right now. Would love to brainstorm on this with you.