eCommerce | Item and Category Images

Topics in this article include

• Adding Images

• Tips

• Troubleshooting

Adding Images

It is recommended that this procedure be done from the server. If done from a terminal, the image quality could be degraded. The system will resize the image for uniformity and optimize it for web viewing.

Find your image:

1. Use your own images if you have good-quality original photos.
2. Manufacturer’s websites - be sure the images don't have a watermark on them.
3. Google image search - again, be sure the images don't have a watermark on them.
4. Copyright infringement is important to avoid. Point of Rental and eCommerce (formerly known as RentalHosting) cannot be held responsible for any unauthorized use of copyrighted material.

Selecting an image file from your camera or a saved file from your computer:

1. Right-click the file.
    
2. Select properties, click on the details tab, and verify that the image's width is at least 400 pixels. Also, please note that:
   1. On POR Expert, the inserted images get resized to a maximum of 640 pixels (in width or height, which ever larger).
   2. On POR Elite, BEFORE inserting very large images (or raw images from a digital camera) into POR, you should resize the original image using photo editing software to a maximum width of 1920 pixels.
       
3. Select Copy.

Selecting an image from a Google search:

1. In the Google search box, type in your search words.
    
2. Click on Images at the top of the search results.
    
3. Scroll through the image results to find the image you want to use.
    
4. Again, avoid images with watermarks and those from major companies like Amazon, Alibaba, Home Depot, etc. 
    
5. Click the image, and a preview will appear on the right side of your browser window.
    
6. Verify that the image's width is at least 400 pixels (the size of the image is shown in the bottom left corner of the preview image—the width is the first number).
   1. On POR Expert, the inserted images get resized to a maximum of 640 pixels (in width or height, which ever larger).
   2. On POR Elite, BEFORE inserting very large images (or raw images from a digital camera) into POR, you should resize the original image to a maximum width of 1920 pixels using Microsoft Paint or any photo editing software.
      

      ℹ️ When resizing images, make sure to maintain the aspect ratio and only specify the new width so that the image doesn’t become distorted. To maintain optimal quality, DO NOT start editing a small image (e.g. 250 pixels in width) and then sizing it UP (e.g. resizing it to 1920 pixels) since the resulting image will become blurry/grainy.

      
      
      
7. Right-click the image and select Copy.

Once your image is the recommended size

1. Open POR
   • To add a picture to an item - Select Item Availability or Item File. Select the item/header you want to add a picture to. You may insert up to 3 pictures in an item record.
   • To add a picture to an item category - From Configuration -> Item Configuration -> Item Categories, select the category you want to add a picture to. Because category images can be shown together on various pages on the website, it is best if they are uniform in size – 400x300px is a good rule of thumb.
       
2. In the Picture (Pictures tab in Item File) field or Web Picture field in the Category record, right-click and select Paste.
      
3. You may be asked for your ID. POR will confirm that you added the picture.
      
4. Once you insert your picture, if it now has a solid black background where it once had white, see Troubleshooting below!

Tips

• If you use header records, the website will upload those instead of the serialized item records, so you can insert images ONLY in the header records and save yourself a lot of time and effort!
   
• As mentioned, category images look best when they are all the same size. The same can be true for item images.
     
• In order to create images all the same size:
  • Download a good, free, image editing app such as Gimp.
  • Create a new file, 400x300px in size.
  • Paste your selected image.
  • Size it down until it fits nicely in the white space.
  • Copy and paste the image in the category record.
  • Remember to never size an image up!  It will lose quality and look terrible!

Troubleshooting
 

The image you copied ended up with a black background?

This means you selected a .png file from your online search or manufacturer's website. To avoid the black background, save the PNG file as JPG using Paint/any photo editing tool. Then copy & paste the image from a JPG-rendered image (which will have a white background).

Random image(s) on an item?

Check the header record to be sure the HEADER field has the correct number in it.

Image(s) aren’t showing up on the web?

1. This can be simply a browser issue. Your Internet browser (Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox) saves web pages you visit and reloads them from memory on repeat visits so that they load faster. This means that it’s not re-loading new images. To force it to reload images, you must refresh the browser. A simple refresh (F5) might work, but you may have to do a hard refresh (Ctrl+F5). You may even need to clear your history (you can Google how to do that in your browser/version).
   
   
2. Try cutting the image (right-click the image, then select Cut) from the Item Availability screen, then paste it in again (right-click the blank space, then select Paste). Then, update the website once more.
   
   
3. Then try:
   • Go to POR Configuration -> Other Updates -> Update Website.
   • Click on Options under the Tools menu.
   • Check the box “Reset Extraction Cut-Off Date” and click OK.
   • Click on “Update Site Data” and let the update run.
   • Go back to the website catalog page in question and confirm that the item record pic is now showing on the web.
   • If it’s still not showing, then please contact eCommerce (formerly known as RentalHosting) for assistance.
     
        
4. If you are having issues seeing updated category and/or item images on the website, despite updating the image(s) and updating the website on Point of Rental, try doing a Hard Refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R / Cmd+Shift+R) or Clear Cache and Cookies. Sometimes, this is needed to flush the browser's old images from showing on the website.