Working with Specifications

Once you've created some specifications, you might be wondering how you can fine-tune them to meet your needs. This article covers the various options available to you as well as explaining why you need separate specifications for different product types and requirements.

• Editing an existing specification

• When and why you need different specifications for different purposes

• Product-specific retouch packages: why you should stick to the products for which they were intended

• What to do if you can't find the options you need

• The limitations for customization on Professional

How to edit an existing specification?

To edit a specification, you simply navigate to the Specifications menu and click 'Edit' on the relevant specification.

You now have access to all settings on the specification and can adjust and save.

If there's a lock on the "Edit" button, this means that your specification has been locked, either because there's an order using this specification in your account, or it was last updated from our side. In this case, please contact the Customer Success team at professional@pixelz.com or cs@pixelz.com for any settings adjustments.

When and why you need different specifications for different purposes

When you submit an order on a specification, all of the images in that order will be edited according to the settings of that specification. 

If you have different requirements for some images (for example, file type, background, size, etc.), you must create a new specification and submit a separate order.

A simple rule of thumb is that you must create a specification for each unique set of requirements.

Retouch packages: Why you should stick to the products for which they were intended

Retouching is a complex process and highly specific to particular product types. The retouching required for a model's clothing for example is completely different from that required for a watch or a chair.

Retouching only works when we perform the right retouching tasks on the right kinds of products. Each retouch package contains a set of highly specific retouching settings. These settings define which steps the image goes through and which editors with which particular skills your images get assigned to.

When you upload a product image to a specification containing a retouch package intended for a different type of product, the editing tasks your images are assigned to are often irrelevant and unnecessary. The result can be that you will see no change in your finished image.

If you are in doubt as to which retouch package is appropriate for your images, please reach out to our Customer Success team before you upload your order.

What to do if you can't find the options you need

We have vastly more specification settings available behind the scenes than are available to you within your Pixelz account. Sometimes this is because they are complex and therefore difficult to make comprehendible within a self-service interface. Sometimes this is because they are rarely used so would clog up and complicate the user interface unnecessarily.

In any case, if you have specific requirements that you can't find options for in your account, these can often be met by our Onboarding Specialists tweaking a few knobs and dials in our system. We also have the option to upload specific example images to your specifications to ensure our editors understand your requirements.

Be sure to reach out to your Professional Product Specialist (during your trial) or Customer Success at professional@pixelz.com (if you're a subscriber) if this is the case.

The limitations for customization on Professional

The editing options and retouching packages available on Professional are based on our years of knowledge of the most common needs as well as image best practices within e-commerce. We are happy to make minor tweaks and adjustments to your specifications to fine-tune them to your requirements, however, we cannot create completely custom specifications which deviate significantly from the core options available. 

Depending on the complexity, the initial costs of creating such custom specifications as well as the ongoing costs of ensuring and maintaining a high level of quality and consistency across all of our editing locations and thousands of editors over time, is such that we generally reserve such work for our Enterprise level clients only.

In some cases, we can meet your needs with a custom onboarding (see below). In other cases, this will not be possible.  For example, if you have unique, custom editing requirements which are specific to one-off orders or even single images, then Pixelz is not the right editing partner for you. 

Custom onboarding

If you have a specific, custom specification requirement that we cannot meet within the standard options available plus a little bit of tweaking and adjusting, we might be able to meet your requirements by performing a custom onboarding.

We would need to assess whether it is possible to:

a) create the specification in our system and

b) guarantee image quality and consistency on an ongoing basis

Our Onboarding Specialists will make this assessment on a case-by-case basis. If we are able to meet your requirements, we charge a fee for this custom service.

Please reach out to Customer Success to discuss this option.