Listing photos go through the same four steps in the same order: crop to the marketplace ratio, cut out the background, compress the file, then watermark it with your shop name. Doing them in that order matters, because cropping after compressing throws away the savings and can cut your own watermark off the frame.
Three of those steps are free and unlimited browser tools, and they never upload your photo. The fourth, background removal, is the exception: it runs on a server, needs an account, and consumes credits, because the model is far too large to run in a tab. That is worth knowing before you plan a workflow around it. The rest of the chain, from the crop to the final watermark, costs nothing and can be repeated as often as you like while you get a listing right.
The four steps, and why the order matters
Each step changes something the next step depends on. Crop changes the shape of the frame, background removal adds transparency, compression decides how much detail survives, and the watermark sits on top of whatever is left. Do them out of order and you either lose quality twice or lose part of your own watermark.
1. Crop to the ratio the marketplace wants
Most listings want a square or a fixed landscape ratio. Image Cropper has presets for 1:1, 4:3, 3:2, 16:9 and 9:16, and the crop frame keeps that ratio while you drag it, so you never end up a few pixels out. Leave it on Free if you want an arbitrary shape.
You can also set a custom output width, which is the moment to drop a 6000 pixel camera file down to something a listing page can actually use. Rotate in 90 degree steps and flip the frame if the shot came out the wrong way round. Add a whole batch and the same relative frame is applied to each image, which is what keeps a product set visually consistent.
Image Cropper
Lock a marketplace ratio, set an output width, and apply the same frame to a whole batch.
2. Cut out the background
This is the step that needs the cloud, and the page says so before you upload. Choose the products scene for goods, which allows a long edge up to 7680 px and a short edge up to 4320 px. Each image can be up to 30 MB, and you can queue up to five in one run and download them together.
Because it is a paid model, each image in the queue consumes a credit. If you already shoot on a seamless white sweep, you can skip this step entirely and stay on the free browser tools for the whole workflow.
Background Remover
Cloud AI cutout for products, people and objects. Uploads the image and consumes credits.
3. Compress the file
Now that the shape and the cutout are final, compress once. Image Compressor gives you a quality slider with a live size readout and a side by side comparison at the same output size, so you can judge the trade rather than guess at it.
If the product shot is a PNG with flat colour or a transparent background, the lossless OxiPNG option re-compresses it without changing a single pixel, and it falls back to a normal canvas encode if the lossless pass would produce a larger file.
4. Stamp your shop name
Watermark last, so nothing crops it off. Image Watermark takes your text, one of five corner and centre positions or a tiled diagonal layout, plus size, colour, opacity and rotation, with the preview updating live. Batch works here too: style the watermark once and download the whole set at full resolution.
There is one thing to be careful about. Do not watermark a photo you do not own the rights to, and do not use this tool to cover someone else's watermark. Removing another photographer's or another shop's mark is a copyright problem, not a workflow step.
What this workflow cannot do
- No free unlimited background removal. The cutout is a server job that costs real money, so it is metered. Five images per run is the batch limit, and each one uses a credit.
- No target file size. Neither compressor takes an exact number such as 100 KB. You lower the setting until the preview shows a size you can accept.
- No background removal for video. The cutout works on still images only. There is no equivalent for a product video.
- No listing templates. These tools change the file, they do not compose a marketplace image with badges, borders or promotional text.