Sources for Product Images

Customers like to see what they are buying and using images in your catalog will make it more visually appealing to customers visiting your website.

 

If you would like to add images that will display in your entrée.NET product catalog and specials there are a few ways to find images that will be discussed next.

 

Finding a Specific Product Image  

 

In the previous example a generic image of ketchup was used for the item image. In the event that you would like to show the actual product image and brand label you will have to explore one of these other options; using a search engine on the internet to find an image that does not violate a copyright, visit the product manufacturer’s website or take your own pictures of the product. We have included a section at the end of this chapter on Copyright Law Basics with a link to more information about the topic.

 

Please refer to these links before you search for your product images:  

 

Google Features Usage Rights - http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=29508

 

Google Advances Image Search - http://images.google.com/advanced_image_search

 

Find Creative Commons images with Google Image Search -

    http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/find-creative-commons-images-with-image.html

 

Creative Commons.org – Use this site to find licensed works http://creativecommons.org/

 

Using Google Images Advanced Search

 

Google Images Copyright and Image use Permissions

 

The images displayed in a Google Image Search may be protected by copyright, so we can't grant you the right to use them for any purpose other than viewing them on the web. If you'd like to use images from an image search, we suggest contacting the site's webmaster to obtain permission and use the Usage Rights filtering feature in an Advanced Image Search.

 

How to find product images using Google Images

 

1.Use your Internet browser and go to images.google.com.

 

2.Type what product you are searching for in the Search Images text box.

 

For this example we used Heinz ketchup to find a brand name image instead of the stock ketchup image used previously in this chapter. As you can see in the image below a list of possible search topics will be presented. You can make a selection from this list.

 

Google-Images-Search

 

3.Click the Advanced Image Search link on the right. The advanced image search page will be displayed. For better search results try these options in Advanced Image Search:

 

Find results - This field will be populated with the search text entered above.

 

Content types – Select photo content.

 

Size – You can select any size you like but the final image used must be edited to 640 x 480 or less for upload.

 

Coloration – Select full color.

 

Usage Rights - Select one of the following options from the drop down list:

 

Labeled for commercial reuse  

 

Labeled for commercial reuse with modification  

 

4.Click the Google Search button to get your search results.

 

Google-AdvImage-Search

Search results for images of Heinz ketchup.

 

Top: Usage Rights set to Labeled for commercial reuse.

Bottom: Usage Rights set to Labeled for commercial reuse with modification.

 

Google-Ketchup-Search

 

5.Click on the desired image format link. For example the Heinz ketchup 57 varieties jpg link. Note the image’s size because you will need to resize any large images to 640 x 480 for use in your system. The image will open in your browser.

 

6.Right click on the image and select Save Picture As from the options list.

 

7.The Save Picture dialog box displays. Select the folder on your computer where you will store your product image files.

 

8. Click Save.

 

9. Then follow the instructions in step 4 of the Assigning entrée System Images section above to import and assign the image to an item in entrée.

 

Source: http://www.google.com/support/websearch

 

Using the Product Manufacturer’s Website for Images

 

Frequently major manufacturers have images available in their websites for the media and businesses to use without any cost. There are usually restrictions about how the images are used and modifications of these images are typically not allowed. Follow these tips to find those manufacturer’s images.

 

1.Select a product check the label for the website information or use a search engine to find the website.

 

2.Once in the web site look for these keywords like these in their website menu; Press Room, Public Relations, Media, Images, Media Downloads, Image Library, Multimedia Assets.

 

3.In our ketchup example we went the manufacturer’s website and found their Press Room Media Assets page with a collection of images.  

 

Heinz-multimedia-page

 

4.Follow any download instructions on the website. Be sure to take note any information about copyright and instructions on the reuse of these images.

 

  If there are no instructions on the website:

 

Click on the desired image format link. For example the Ketchup Bottle jpg link in the center of the Heinz ketchup image. The image will open in the browser.

Right click on the image and select Save Picture As from the options list.

The Save Picture dialog box displays.

Select the folder on your computer where you will store your product image files.

Click Save.

 

5.Then follow the instructions in step 4 of the Assigning entrée System Images section above to import and assign the image to an item in entrée.

 

Note - Y It is your responsibility to make sure you do not violate the manufacturer’s copyright.

 

Taking Your Own Pictures

 

Using a digital camera you can take pictures of the products in your warehouse that can be imported into the entrée system. When you take your own pictures you own the images and can control what is in the picture uploaded for a product.  

 

Although images of any resolution are supported, it is recommended to use 640 x 480 resolution to save hard disk space and cut down on the amount of time it takes to upload the images to your entrée.NET system.

 

1.Create a folder on your computer called “Product Images”.

 

2.Once you have taken product pictures with your digital camera drag and drop or copy the image files from your camera SD card to your Product Images folder.

 

3.Now you need to edit the images in whatever photo editing software you have on your computer. Try to crop the picture so only the product is in the image. Be sure to resize images to 640x480.

 

4.Save the edited image files with a descriptive name, for example; Heinz ketchup bottle or Heinz ketchup packets. This way it will be easy to match the images with your items.

 

5.Then follow the instructions in step 4 of the Assigning entrée System Images section above to import and assign the images to an item in entrée.

 

6.The next time you run the Export to entrée.NET the item will have an image for display.

 

7.If you want item images to display in entrée.NET go to the Settings tab > Options > General section > “Display item images” option and set it to Yes.