Bring in a Photoshop file

If your artwork already exists as a Photoshop file, you don’t have to draw it again. Customei reads the file and builds a design template out of it. You keep the things that matter:

• Your text stays text. You can still change the words, the size, and the font later.
• Your layers stay separate. A group in Photoshop becomes a group here, so nothing is flattened into one flat picture.
• Your pictures become swappable. Every picture is saved into a folder of images, so a customer can switch between them later.

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Start the import

Go to Design Templates and click Import PSD. Drag your file onto the box, or click Choose .psd file and pick it.

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Check what’s coming in

Next you see your artwork on the left and its layers on the right. Nothing has been created yet, so take a moment here.

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The name and the size

The Template name starts as your file name. Change it to whatever you want to see in your template list. The two grey chips under it are the size and the print quality, both taken straight from your file. There is nothing to set: if you drew at 2400 × 3000 at 300 DPI, that’s what you get.

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Tick only what you want to keep

Every layer has a tick box. Untick the ones that are only there to help you design: guide layers, notes to yourself, the scribble you parked off to one side. Customei already unticks the obvious ones for you and says why underneath the layer name: The counter at the top (10/11 layers) tells you how many are ticked.

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Groups: keep them or flatten them

Each group gets two controls of its own. Keep N layers brings each picture in as its own layer. This is what you want for a group of alternatives, like Pet photo holding a dog, a cat and a rabbit. Your customer will be able to pick one. Merge into 1 image flattens the whole group into a single picture. Use it for artwork that is only ever one thing, like a background made of twenty little pieces. The picker next to it says where the pictures go. Every group’s pictures are saved together in one folder of images, and each picture layer is joined to that folder. That’s what lets you (or your customer) swap between them later. Leave it on New library and Customei names the folder after your template and the group, or choose a folder you already have. Pictures that aren’t in any group get their own row at the bottom of the list.

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Fonts

Customei looks up every font your file uses and tells you which ones it has. Your text comes in either way. If a font is missing, the words are still words you can edit, they just show in a different typeface until you deal with it. Click Pick a font to choose something you do have, or to upload the real font file.

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The notes at the bottom

Under the layer list you may see one or two short lines about what Photoshop features survive. In plain terms:

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Import it

Click Import layers. Your pictures upload, and the template opens in the editor when it’s done. Notice two things:

1. Your text is still text. Click Pet name and you can retype it, restyle it, and later let a customer fill it in.
2. Every layer has a number (#9, #6, #2). Those numbers are how you connect a customer’s answer to a layer. See Connect an option set to a template.

The folders of pictures the import made are waiting in Assets, on the Image tab, named after your template.

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Where to next