I just ordered one. This is a great idea! I really like the flash tool that helps you place custom artwork on the case. The checkout process was very smooth as well.
That being said, there's a problem with the custom artwork process. The vast majority of my photos are landscape, and these simply don't fit well onto a case. I had to photoshop one of my photos to add some extra sky onto the top in order to graft it onto a case. Any landscape photo taken with the rule of thirds will have this problem.
This is compounded by the tool, which has a nasty looking warning if you fail to fill the entire print area with your photo. There's nothing in the FAQ about the "print area", and none of the photos show the front of the case, leaving me completely in the dark about how serious an issue this is.
Obviously being an iPhone you expect to view it in a vertical orientation, however we do provide a way to rotate the image to landscape.
We're working on updating the FAQ about the bleed area. Basically since you're looking at the back of the case, it's hard to visualize the fact that the case wraps around the sides of the phone and has a slight lip around the front. The image printing process does cover that entire area. We wanted to make people aware that the image does in fact need to cover more area than is visible in the configurator. You do have the option to not cover the bleed, it will just end up being the white base color of the case.
1) Document this better! I figured it out eventually, but there were a couple of people looking over my shoulder who wanted to "just click continue", which would have resulted in an ugly surprise later on.
2) You could auto-expand my image to cover the bleed. Basically, just take the last few pixels on each side and expand them out to the edges. That would almost always be better than plain old white, right? This is basically what I did manually with Photoshop.
Comments
I just ordered one. This is a great idea! I really like the flash tool that helps you place custom artwork on the case. The checkout process was very smooth as well.
That being said, there's a problem with the custom artwork process. The vast majority of my photos are landscape, and these simply don't fit well onto a case. I had to photoshop one of my photos to add some extra sky onto the top in order to graft it onto a case. Any landscape photo taken with the rule of thirds will have this problem.
This is compounded by the tool, which has a nasty looking warning if you fail to fill the entire print area with your photo. There's nothing in the FAQ about the "print area", and none of the photos show the front of the case, leaving me completely in the dark about how serious an issue this is.
Obviously being an iPhone you expect to view it in a vertical orientation, however we do provide a way to rotate the image to landscape.
We're working on updating the FAQ about the bleed area. Basically since you're looking at the back of the case, it's hard to visualize the fact that the case wraps around the sides of the phone and has a slight lip around the front. The image printing process does cover that entire area. We wanted to make people aware that the image does in fact need to cover more area than is visible in the configurator. You do have the option to not cover the bleed, it will just end up being the white base color of the case.
Thanks for the feedback, it's much appreciated!
I understand. A couple of suggestions:
1) Document this better! I figured it out eventually, but there were a couple of people looking over my shoulder who wanted to "just click continue", which would have resulted in an ugly surprise later on.
2) You could auto-expand my image to cover the bleed. Basically, just take the last few pixels on each side and expand them out to the edges. That would almost always be better than plain old white, right? This is basically what I did manually with Photoshop.