How can I automate bulk image resizing & cropping for e-commerce?

Question

I have 1000s of eCommerce fashion images that need editing & retouching. The editing/retouching tasks that I must do for every image are.

• Remove the image background and replace it with a solid color
• Crop out the white space
• Crop out the faces from on-model images
• Resize images for different marketplaces (I have c. 50 marketplaces where I sell, and marketplaces have different image size requirements)

Is there a way to automate this workflow?

This is what I have tried so far.

• Online tools - Online photo editing tools fall short of my requirements. Online photo editing tools can crop and resize images but the resizing and cropping must still be done manually.
• Photoshop - I have tried automating my process in Photoshop, but again with limited success. Only the background removal could be automated. The remaining three steps require manual work.

My current workflow involves using Adobe Photoshop for one image at a time:

Use Quick Action > Remove Background Then select Image Crop tool to get rid of the model’s face just above mid point of nose & eyes Create an Artboard for each marketplace dimensions such as 1600x1600, 3450x2300 etc based on the marketplace ask Copy the above crop into each artboard, scale up/down the primary product or object in the canvas and try to do a best fit in the available space Also add margins when I resize in Photoshop around the product image so it appears consistent across different images I can add guides for margins in Photoshop to help me

Here is an example of before and after product imagery:

My question - Is there a way to automate the entire process?

Answer 1

Disclosure: I'm a member of the Crop.photo team and I wanted to chime in on this question. While I am biased towards our product, I believe it can offer a solution to your questions.

Problem 1: Remove the image background and replace it with a solid color

There are plenty of background removal tools online as well as desktop that can do this. But the challenge is to find that works well with a large batch of images and can deal with contrast & lighting in eCommerce product images like the one you have shown where the models dress & background offer a low contrast. You are right Photoshop actions can automate this step but you still need accomplish the other steps manually.

Problem 2: Automated cropping & content-aware resizing

Take a look at Crop.photo app. It was designed to use AI face/object recognition to cut out a person's face partially to achieve what you are after. It is content-aware so unlike other tools including such as ImageMagick or Canva it can go beyond just recognizing the image focal point and resize the actual product/object by preventing the object edges from getting cut off when the canvas aspect ratio changes.