Etsy - Please allow us to reposition the square photo

[WilloeStudio]

There is an option to reposition the rectangle thumbnail, but not the square thumbnail. Please allow us to reposition the square photo because it's impossible to get it to look right without this feature.

I need my photos to be left-aligned but at the moment, it only allows center alignment.

[SugarTaffySoap]

@WilloeStudio  I see the full listing images in Etsy search but in your shop I see the words on the left are cut off a little. The square photos are now a permanent change and you'll have to revise all of your listings to rectangle or create new images. 

Here's the Announcement article in case you missed it.

https://community.etsy.com/t5/Announcements/We-re-making-updates-to-size-and-ratio-for-listing-image...

[WilloeStudio]

Thanks! I saw the announcement and I created all new square photos, but the text still gets cut off. 

I'd have to re-do all my images with text in the center and I'd rather not do that because all my images are consistent on multiple marketplaces. It will take hours and hours to redo everything.

Etsy gives us the option to reposition the rectangle thumbnails shown in search when we edit our listings, we just need the ability to reposition the square thumbnail on our shopfronts. If they added that feature, a lot of shops wouldn't have to redo all their photos.

[DragonflyDreams1]

@WilloeStudio OK, I admit I am a little confused as to why you would need to reposition a square photo.

I think you are running into the same issue I encountered. Etsy is manipulating some of the square pictures. A square is a square and they should not be altering that square to generate a thumbnail for the store pages. Etsy is enlarging SOME of my square pictures when they display them in my store (and in mobile chrome). So they are displaying cut off/only a portion of the item.

I contacted Etsy through chat, told them of the issue and supplied them with screenshots. The rep was able to visit my store and see it for themselves as well. They stated it was a glitch with my account. I told them it wasn't just me, there are posts in the forum and it is more widespread than my account alone.

PLEASE contact Etsy chat with a link to the listing, a screenshot of the store page and a screenshot of the listing page to show how the square picture SHOULD be displayed. They will only fix it if enough people complain.

[BagmakerSupply]

@WilloeStudio @DragonflyDreams1 : Best guess is that the imaging routine Etsy is using to make square images for the shop home page is also trying to get rid of (what it considers) excess white space to make the item more prominent - even when the image is already square - and not doing a very good job of it. 

They have been doing that with off site ads for quite some time, possibly to strip out any shop branding.

[YonksRox]

What you could do is go into the blue seller app and adjust the primary photo in there. This will then look good in the laptop listing but unfortunately does not look good in the orange app. It seems like their format does not cover all options. I’m hoping they iron this out. It’s so frustrating as I spent all yesterday squaring up primary photos and yet it’s still zoomed in on other avenues.

[WilloeStudio]

Yes this is my problem! I can get my photos looking good on my shop front, but then they're cut off in search and zoomed in on the orange app. The sizes aren't consistent.

I think I'm going to keep them as rectangles because most people visit my shop from search. 

[HauteVintageJewels]

The issue is that Etsy changed the shop photos to display in a square format, but the editing tool for the first image does not work with this new format.  So, we are left unable to adjust our main photos.  Unless Etsy fixes the editing tool, which they won't since they want us to use the new (and awful) listing form, we will have to live with offset, ugly photos or spend countless hours retaking our photos.  And why we were forced into this square photo format in our shops when search photos remain rectangular cannot be because buyers buy more when they see squares.  Almost every buyer comes in from search, not directly to our shops, so they are clicking on a rectangular photo.  This sudden change to square photos has to benefit Etsy in some way because it certainly doesn't help us.

[FeltArtLtd]

I really want the photos in the shop to look good, and the fact that I can't edit them in a decent square composition at the moment is bothering me.

[FruteJuce]

I want my photos to look better and I need the listing tools to help with this. Taking photos is not my strong point so being able to at least display them how I want to is priority. 

[jnwalljr]

I cropped my primary photos in the new listing editor to make them square but they still appear zoomed in and cut off on my shop page. There is no way that I have found to make them look good again. Has anyone had ANY success doing this???? Help please!!!!

[PremaFelt]

I first squared my picture with text in photoshop, supplemented with a white strip at the top and bottom. After that, in photoshop, I moved this square image to the side with white stripes into a rectangle, so all the parts that are cut off are extra in my photo. It took me a lifetime to figure out which image matches the etsy cutout. It became smaller and a bit ugly, but it was the fastest solution for me. Unfortunately, I can't re-photograph many things. Sad.

[ArtDollsbyJD]

@WilloeStudio   Your photos look good to me.  In fact most shops I have visited the photos are fine with very little removed.  

[WilloeStudio]

My photos looked dreadful - all my text was cut off, but I managed to find a fix. I created a 2000x2000 image with a white background and pasted my original image inside to fit the width.

This shows white space above and below my images, but it looks 95% better than it did before.

[hopeandjoystudios]

If your original photo was taken too close and you just cropped it to square  (or Etsy did) there is no way to "back it up". You will need to redo the photos unless the original photo was taken far enough away that you could go back and edit the original photo to a square. Or maybe one of your secondary phots was taken further away and you can square that one and move it to the first slot. I use the square CD template on my editing program to edit the pic and still leave a bit of extra space just in case.

[jnwalljr]

I think I've discovered the problem. There is a disconnect between the listing editor (both old and new) and the new shop page format with square thumbnails. The listing editor "Adjust thumbnail" function still uses a rectangular format. Even if you crop your photos so that the first image is square, the square becomes a shorter rectangle (done by the "adjust thumbnail"), then it is forced into the square format of the shop page and the sides are cropped to make it fit. The "adjust thumbnail" function has to be revised to deal with the new square formats and the idiots at Etsy have yet to figure that out.  

[DragonflyDreams1]

You are absolutely correct. But it isn't happening to all my listings/thumbnails, only some.

[DragonflyDreams1]

And is my mind processing this correctly that the fix is for us to have more "free" or blank area on the edges of our pictures? So square photo with free space so when we adjust the thumbnail there is more of that "free" area for Etsy to crop out?

[CuriosityCabinet]

Yes! My photos were taken so they could have been cropped square and the items still would have been centered but etsy ZOOMED in and cropped off the sides! They did not mention they would be zooming in, making our photos (over)FILL the space. It makes shops look cluttered. My shop look was carefully shot, curated and arranged and now it does not look as good. Why did they launch this when the listing photo crop tool doesn't even accommodate the new square format yet? You can't even position them easily during the listing process. Between this and the descriptions being hidden at the bottom of the page... wtf are they doing?

[StudioBeertje]

Etsy, you want us to be creative. When taking photos I like to play with space, composition, light, color. That is no longer possible. I have to take square photos and put the item in the center, with enough space around it. Boring! All the same placement in the plane, sometimes ridiculously zoomed in, then cut off again. The play is over and the creativity is lost.