Weekly Recap: Better Retail Performance, Local Printing with Artwork & Smarter Pano Handling 📸✨

Hey photo friends! 👋

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Candy here with another weekly recap! This week brings faster, more stable retail image loading, a new way to print locally with Event artwork applied, smarter handling for panoramic images, and several useful cleanup improvements across Offers, Background Removal, Virtual Groups, and Auto Editor.

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Let’s jump in!

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⚡ Faster, More Stable Retail Image Loading

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We’ve improved image performance and memory usage throughout Retail anywhere images are displayed.

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This should help pages feel more efficient overall, and it also fixes an edge-case crash on iPhones inside the Package Editor when a package contained lots of items and the gallery had a very large number of cutouts.

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A few other Retail fixes landed too:

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🎨 Fixed Event overlay artwork appearing as an option for Virtual Group images

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📦 Fixed Event artwork appearing in a package cropper when the product didn’t support it

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👛 Fixed package prefill incorrectly applying Event artwork to Wallets

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✂️ Fixed a crop-calculation edge case involving cutouts created from Auto Edited images

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🍪 Fixed unreadable products and packages in the Cookie Dough theme when a package was selected

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🖨️ NEW: Print Locally with Artwork

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On both the Manage Images and Participant Details pages, there’s now a new:

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"Print Locally w/ Artwork"

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button directly below the existing Print Locally option.

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This gives you a quick way to prepare an image for local printing while including the Event’s artwork, instead of printing the plain image version.

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🖼️ Smarter Panoramic Image Handling

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We’ve tightened up how 3:1 panoramic images behave throughout the platform.

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🚫 3:1 images can now stay out of Participant Galleries when they can’t be sold‍

• If an Offer doesn’t include any compatible 3:1 panoramic products, those images are hidden from Participant Galleries instead of leading shoppers into an empty store screen.

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⚠️ New pano warning during upload

• If you upload a 3:1 image but the Event’s Offer doesn’t include any panoramic products, the Upload Images page will now warn you.

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This should make it easier to catch mismatched Offer setups before customers ever run into them.

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🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Virtual Group Builder Improvements

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⚡ Faster full-size rendering

• Full-resolution Virtual Group renders should now complete more quickly.

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🖼️ New 1×3 aspect ratio

• Virtual Group Builder now supports 1×3 layouts.
• Participant names are disabled by default on this aspect ratio unless they were already enabled.

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🏷️ Imported PhotoTags shown when saving

• The Save popup now lists any PhotoTags that were imported into the Virtual Group, making it easier to remember which groups you used.

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➕ Add blank subjects anytime

• The Add Subjects button now remains available even when you don’t have Participants to add, allowing you to create additional blank participants manually.

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💸 Auto Editor FreePics Reminder

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Auto Editor now includes a new popup reminding users about FreePics costs when setting up edits.

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This should make it clearer when an Auto Editor workflow may result in additional FreePics image-delivery costs.

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🛍️ Offer Creator Safeguard

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Ever spend time setting up an Offer and then accidentally navigate away?

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There’s now a “Leave the offer editor without saving?” warning if you try to exit the Offer Creator with unsaved changes.

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✂️ Background Removal Fix

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And one wonderfully specific fix this week:

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📂 Fixed an edge case where Background Removal folders whose names ended in the letter “c” wouldn’t appear on the Background Removal page inside Events.

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Just a tiny typo causing a medium-sized bug. Isn't technology fun? 😂

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📣 Marketing Update

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🆓 No copyright treatment on image-preview links for FreePics Events

• When marketing links include an image preview for a FreePics Event, the preview will no longer have copyright artwork applied.

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That’s the week!

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The biggest improvements are behind the scenes in Retail performance, but the new Print Locally w/ Artwork option and smarter pano handling should make a noticeable difference in everyday workflows too.

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Keep creating magic,

Candy 🍬