Best Practices for Images in Corjl
Are your designs taking a long time to download or load on the screen? Following these steps below will help!
Why does this information matter? Corjl is what is known as a "browser" or "web-based" software program. This means that it does not download to your computer like some image design software and must rely on the limitations of the internet connection, the type and memory available for the browser being used, and the computer or laptop's specifications (such as RAM/memory and CPU). Depending on these factors, very large images being uploaded to Corjl and used in designs can greatly affect the customer's ability to edit and download their designs in Corjl.
To limit these issues, sellers should use the following "best practices" when preparing images for upload into their Corjl account:
1. Reduce Image Size
Image size is perhaps the most important factor that can affect how well a design performs in Corjl for your customers. When you use larger images than necessary in your designs, it can slow Corjl down and make loading and editing the design difficult for you and your customers. Most clipart and image creators will create and sell their images at a size much larger than necessary for a digital and even a printed design.
For example: here we have a watercolor PNG image of a blue truck. The image straight from the clipart seller is sized at 10800 x 5400 pixels. This will equal a size of 36-inches wide and 18-inches tall at 300 dpi/ppi: 
This image is much larger than it needs to be for a 7x5-inch invitation--actually six times the size! It is even much larger than it needs to be for a large poster design (see number 4 below). Customers will have issues downloading an image this large, including the time it takes to load and edit on the screen and longer downloading time. Resizing this image to a smaller size in inches--while still keeping it at 300 dpi/ppi--will help your design load and download better for your customers, without changing the image quality for printing at all.
You can resize large images in a program such as Photoshop or Illustrator, but there are also many free online photo editors that will resize your images as well before uploading to your Corjl account.
2. Crop extra pixel space around PNG images.
Once again, many clipart creators will leave a large amount of "empty pixels" around their clipart images. These blank pixels actually add to the overall image size. Cropping your transparent PNG images as close to the actual design as possible (as shown below), will give you a smaller image size. In addition, it will help customers edit the design as these "empty pixels" will not interfere as they are editing.
3. Flatten multiple images into a single Background Image.
Designs with a very large number of images can also have a difficult time loading properly on the screen and downloading for customers. This is one of the reasons we recommend that you first flatten all images that do not need to be edited by the customer to a single "background" image and then use that in your designs instead of multiple individual image files.
You can do this in an external editing program such as Photoshop, or you can assemble this background in Corjl in the design, download a JPG or PNG image from Corjl of this background, then re-upload this background download file to your design and then delete the individual images from the design.
4. Lower the DPI/PPI for large design sizes.
Professional printers know that you do not need to print large designs like signs and posters at 300 dpi. As posters and signs are viewed from at least two feet away, they will print with perfect clarity and sharpness for viewing at a dpi/ppi of 150 to 200. Lowering the dpi/ppi--even a small amount to 250 to 280--for your larger designs will also help images load and download correctly and without issues for customers.
If you are having issues with designs loading slowly or taking a very long time to download, you can often improve the loading and downloading functionality for your customers by following these "best practice" steps listed above. If, after following these guidelines for your images and designs, customers are still having issues with designs loading or downloading correctly, please contact customer support.
See The Difference In Download Times!
Here is a design that has lots of large, individual images. As you can see, the download time is extremely long and the customer has to have the download files sent in an email:
Here is that same design after using Corjl to download a single "background" image of all the individual images (without the text) and then re-adding that to the original design and deleting the individual images. All of the images and the design is still at 300 PPI and high resolution, but you can see that the download time has been drastically reduced and also downloads directly to the customer's computer:
