Images

The images area reads the product images of your shop and checks them by fixed rules: size, sharpness, aspect ratio, image type, duplicates and alt texts. From there you can add missing alt texts and titles, sort the images of each product by type, assign whole supplier folders to products and let an AI check whether image and product fit together. Every change to the shop has a preview first and can be undone.

Where to find it

• Image list: Products > Images.
• One product: click an image card in the list. The page shows all images of the product in their order.
• Suggestions from the AI check: button Review suggestions in the image list (only visible while there are open suggestions).
• Background removal: button Remove background in the image list and on a product's page, see Remove background.
• Folder upload: button Assign folder in the image list.

What you need

Permissions are assigned by an administrator, see Access.

• The shop must be connected, see Onboarding.
• To write anything (alt texts, order, folder images), the shop must not be read-only.
• The AI check needs an AI key and the AI feature Image check switched on for the shop, see AI. Without it, all rule-based checks still work.
• To assign a folder to new product drafts, you also need the permission Edit and create products.

How do I import and check the images?

1. Open Products > Images.
2. Click Import images. On the very first visit the same button is in the middle of the empty page (No images imported yet).
3. The message Job started. appears and the button shows the progress, for example Reading products and then how many images are done. You can keep working; the job runs in the background (see Jobs).
4. When the job is done, the page reloads with the results.

What happens: plinth reads all products and their images from the shop and checks every new or changed image. Images that did not change keep their earlier result, so later runs are faster. Importing only reads from the shop. Nothing in the shop is changed.

Note: Run Import images again after images were added or replaced in the shop. Until then new images are missing or show not analyzed yet.

Which findings exist?

The header also shows how many products have no image at all and how many have packshots only.

Note: The images area has no settings page. The limits above are the standard values.

How do I find images with problems?

1. Open Products > Images.
2. Click a tile at the top, for example No alt text, Too small, Blurry or Duplicates. The list then shows only these images. Click the tile again to remove the filter.
3. Combine several tiles to narrow the list further. Active filters appear next to the search field; click one to remove it.
4. Use the search field (File, alt text, product number, brand) to look for a specific image or product.
5. Use Next and Back at the bottom to move through the pages.

Each card shows the image, its type, a warning such as too small or blurry, the file name, the size in pixels, the product number and the alt text (or no alt text).

Open one product

1. Click an image card. The product page opens with all images of this product, numbered by position.
2. For each image you see Type, Size, Alt text and Title. Click an image to open the original in a new tab.
3. Notes at the top tell you if This product has no image. or if it has Packshots only, no model photo.
4. If there are open AI suggestions for the product, they are listed under Open suggestions.
5. Back to image list takes you back.

Show duplicates

1. In the image list click More actions > Show duplicates.
2. The dialog lists each group as identical or similar images with links to the images. If there are none, you see No duplicates found.

plinth only shows duplicates. It does not delete images.

How do I add missing alt texts and titles?

1. In the image list click More actions > Add alt texts for the whole shop. To do it for one product only, open the product and click Add alt texts there.
2. The dialog Add alt texts and titles calculates a preview. Choose the mode:
   • Only fill empty and file-name texts: existing good texts stay as they are.
   • Overwrite all texts: every alt text and title is replaced.
3. Check the table with the columns Item, Before and After. Above it you see the number of changes and the note that nothing has been written to the shop yet.
4. Click Write to shop now.
5. When it is done you see Written to the shop. You can undo this under "Jobs".

How the text is built: brand and product name, the colour, and a short phrase for the image type, for example "Example Brand wool coat in navy, worn by a model". Only images that were checked, are readable and belong to a product get a text.

What is written to the shop: the alt text and the title of the image. Nothing else.

Undo alt texts and titles

• Right after writing, click Undo in the same dialog. You then see Reverted.
• Later, open the job in Jobs and undo it there. The earlier alt texts and titles are restored.

Note: If an approval rule applies to your role, you see Submitted for approval. Nothing is changed until a team lead approves. See Workflow.

How do I sort the images of a product by type?

1. In the image list click More actions > Sort by type for all products. For one product, open it and click Sort by type there.
2. The dialog Order by image type shows the preview with the old and new position of every image that moves. If the order is already right, you see Nothing to change.
3. Click Write to shop now.

The order is: packshots first, then model images, then detail images. Within one type the current order is kept. Only products with at least two images, all of them checked, are sorted.

What is written to the shop: the position of the images within the product. Undo works exactly as for alt texts: Undo in the dialog or later in Jobs.

How do I assign a folder of supplier images to products?

Use this when you receive many images at once, sorted in one sub folder per product.

1. Run Import images first, so plinth knows the products of the shop.
2. In the image list click Assign folder.
3. If you see the field Target, choose Products in the shop (the images go straight into the shop after Assign) or New products (drafts) (the images go to the draft and reach the shop only when it is published, see Products).
4. Drop a folder on the upload area, or click Choose folder or Choose ZIP or images. Name the sub folders like the product, for example "Product name - Colour". A product number as folder name works too.
5. Wait for the upload and for Matching folders ... to finish. Nothing is written yet.
6. Check the result. The tiles show Folders, Matched, Unmatched and Images. The table has one row per folder:
   • Folder and Images: the folder name and a few thumbnails. The first image is marked Cover. A "!" marks images that are too small or blurry.
   • Product / variant: the product found. Change it in the list, pick one with Choose product ... or select Skip folder.
   • Match: exact, similar with a percentage, or a reason why nothing was chosen: No match, Ambiguous or Product already taken.
7. Optional: tick Always make the folder's first image the cover (even if the product already has images).
8. Click Assign. The line next to the button says how many folders will be assigned.
9. When the job is done you see Done: with the number of products and images.

Accepted files: JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, up to 40 MB per image, ZIP up to 200 MB. SVG is not accepted. Uploaded files are kept for 7 days; after that upload the folder again.

What is written to the shop when the target is Products in the shop:

• The images are uploaded to the shop and added to the product after its existing images. Images the product already has are skipped.
• New images get the folder name as alt text and title.
• The first image of the folder becomes the cover if the product has none. With the checkbox ticked it always becomes the cover and the existing images move back.
• If the product has colour variants, a folder with a colour in its name is matched to that colour and the images go to every variant of this colour.

Undo a folder assignment

Click Undo next to the result message, or undo the job later in Jobs. The added images are removed from the products and from the shop again. You then see Assignment undone.

Warning: With the target Products in the shop the images are visible in the shop as soon as the job has finished. Check the column Product / variant before you click Assign.

How do I run the AI image check?

The AI describes each image: type, garment and colours. plinth then compares this with the product data by rule. Only the image is sent, no customer data. The check costs money and never writes to the shop; its results are suggestions.

1. In the image list click More actions > AI check. The entry is only there if you have the permission Run image AI.
2. In the dialog AI image check choose All images or one type (Model, Detail, Packshot).
3. Read the estimate: how many images will be sent, how many are already known (free) and the estimated price in EUR.
4. Click Confirm cost and start. The run is a job; the dialog shows the progress.
5. When it is done, the page with the suggestions opens.

Good to know:

• An image that was already described is not sent again, so a second run is cheaper.
• One run is limited (500 images by default). If the list was cut, you see The list was shortened to the per-run limit. Start another run for the rest.
• Suggestions the AI is not sure enough about are dropped.

How do I review the suggestions?

1. In the image list click Review suggestions. The number on the button is the count of open suggestions.
2. One suggestion is shown at a time, with the image, the product, the kind of suggestion and the value Confidence.
3. Decide with the buttons at the bottom or with the keyboard: Accept (Y), Reject (N), Skip (S). Undo (U) takes back the last decision.
4. When everything is done you see All reviewed.

Deciding needs the permission Decide on image suggestions. What accepting means depends on the kind:

Write accepted alt texts to the shop

1. On the suggestions page click Write accepted alt texts (the number in brackets is the count). You need the permission Import images, write alt text, sort.
2. Check the preview and click Write to shop now.
3. Undo it with Undo in the dialog or later in Jobs.

How does plinth use the product colour?

There is no separate screen to assign colours to images. The colour of a product is taken from its colour property in the shop and is used in three places:

• in generated alt texts and titles,
• in the AI check, to report Color does not match,
• in the folder upload, to match a folder with a colour in its name to the right colour variant.

How do I remove the background of product images?

Background removal cuts the subject out of a product photo and puts it on a uniform background: white, transparent or your own colour, with the same margin and the same aspect ratio for all images. Nothing is written to the shop until you start that explicitly at the end. The original is always kept.

1. Click Remove background in the image list. An active filter is carried along: the page shows the same images. On a product's page, Remove background opens only the images of that product.
2. Under 1. Choose pictures, select the images, one by one or with Select all shown. Under Upload your own files you can also process images that are not in the shop yet, for example photos for new products.
3. Under 2. Engine and output, choose the Engine. For every engine the list shows the quality in stars and the time or the price per picture. The line below the list says what it is good for.
4. Set the output:
   • Background: White, Transparent or Own colour.
   • Aspect ratio: Like the original or a fixed ratio such as 3:4. A fixed ratio gives all product images the same format.
   • Crop to the subject and centre it and Margin in percent: the subject is cropped, centred and gets the same free margin on every side.
   • Shadow: No shadow or Soft shadow under the subject.
   • File format: WebP, PNG or JPG, plus Quality and Longest edge in pixels. JPG has no transparency.
5. Click Preview, first pictures. plinth processes only the first three images. Under 3. Result you see Before and After side by side. Transparent areas appear as a checkerboard.
6. If the result does not fit, change the engine or the output and run the preview again.
7. Click Process all selected. The progress is shown; you can leave the page and come back later through Jobs.
8. Check the results. Every image has a status: Waiting, Done, Failed or In the shop. Restart failed images one by one with Try again or together with Try the failed ones again.
9. Download single images with Download or all of them with Download all as ZIP.

One run takes up to 500 images. Results and uploaded files are kept for 14 days.

Which engine fits?

Local models run on your own server: the images do not leave it and there is no cost per image. External services run on GPUs at the vendor: faster, but the images are sent there and every image costs.

The S-measure is the models' published score on the DIS-VD test set (1 = perfect). The times of standard and lite were measured with 4 processor cores on a busy development machine on images of about 1100 × 1650 pixels; on the server they depend on the assigned cores. The two HR models and the portrait model are switched off by default: your administrator enables them on the server. The HR models need a lot of memory for this (estimated 32 GB). The prices are the vendors' list prices of November 2026 in US dollars; enter the price from your contract in the settings.

Notes from practice:

• White on white (a white blouse on a white background) is the hardest case. Always look at the preview and compare two engines. In the test with a white lace blouse, BiRefNet lite was clean while BiRefNet standard left a white area below the blouse.
• Hair, fur, lace, tulle: BiRefNet HR matting keeps fine structures partly translucent instead of cutting them off hard.
• Ghost mannequin (the mannequin is removed from the picture) is not something plinth does. It generates parts of the picture anew and can change the garment; it belongs in the photo production.
• Not offered: remove.bg (the service closes its interface for self-serve customers on 1 December 2026), the BRIA RMBG 2.0 model as a local file (licence for non-commercial use only; through the Bria and fal services it can be used with a licence) and older models such as U2-Net (visibly worse edges).

How do I write the cut-out images to the shop?

After a complete run, click Write to the shop and confirm. For every image plinth uploads the result as a new media into the same media folder, copies the alt text and title of the original and shows the new image, at the same position, on all products that use the original. The original stays unchanged in the Shopware media library.

With Undo the write, or later under Jobs, the products show the original again and the uploaded images are removed from the shop.

Your own uploaded files belong to no product and cannot be written to the shop: download them as a ZIP.

Writing needs two things:

• The shop must not be read-only. For a read-only shop the page shows This shop is read-only and Write to the shop is locked.
• The Shopware access (the integration) needs the rights create and change media (media: create, update) and change product images (product_media: update). If they are missing, Shopware refuses the first upload. plinth then shows The Shopware access may not create media, remembers this for the shop and writes nothing. A Shopware administrator grants the rights under Settings > System > Integrations through the role of the integration.

In both cases the cut-out images are kept: download them with Download all as ZIP and upload them in Shopware yourself.

Default, cost cap, keys and usage

At the bottom of the page, open Settings: default, cost cap, keys and usage. They apply to all shops of your company. To change them you need the permission Run image AI.

• Default engine: this engine is preselected. With Automatic plinth takes the best available local model.
• Cost cap per month in euros: external services stop as soon as the month's counted cost reaches the cap. The default is €25. With 0, external services are switched off. Local models are never limited.
• API keys: enter the key of the service under New key. It is stored encrypted and never shown again. Only with a key can the service be chosen in the list.
• Price per picture in euros: the price plinth counts the cost with.
• Pictures and Cost: the usage in the current month per engine. Every image a service processed is counted, also in the preview.

Before the start, the line next to the buttons says what the run will cost roughly and how much budget is left this month.

How do I adjust the white margin of the images?

New images often have more or less white margin than the images already in the shop. plinth therefore knows the image margin of the shop: how much margin the product images usually have at the top, at the bottom and at the sides, plus their aspect ratio and size. The margin counts in the direction in which the subject fills the image: top and bottom for a long dress, the sides for a wide scarf.

Set the image margin:

1. Open Remove background and expand Image margin of the shop at the bottom.
2. Click Learn from shop pictures. plinth measures up to 400 product images with a white background and takes the median margin. The images must have been imported first.
3. Check the values and change them if needed: Top margin, Bottom margin, Side margin, Allowed deviation in percentage points, Picture width and Picture height. Save with Save image margin.

Adjust the margin:

• In the import of new products, the step Assign images checks every image, see Products.
• For images in the shop: on the Remove background page, select the images and choose the engine Adjust margin (no model, white background only). Images with a differing margin carry a note such as margin top and bottom 18 % instead of 6 %; Select differing margin selects exactly these. Preview, ZIP, Write to the shop and undo work as for background removal.

Adjusting crops or adds white margin, centres the subject and brings the image to the aspect ratio and at most the size of the shop images. It never enlarges and does not remove the background. Images without a white background report The background is not white: choose a background removal engine for them.

The note only appears on images that were analysed since the measurement exists. Older images in the shop get it as soon as their file is analysed again.

How do I follow a long-running task?

Importing, writing alt texts, sorting, the folder assignment, background removal and the AI check all run as jobs in the background. You can stay in the dialog and watch the progress, or close it and continue working. Every job appears in Jobs with its name, for example Import images, Alt texts and titles, Sort images by type, Assign images from folder or AI image check. Jobs that wrote to the shop can be undone there.

Common errors and fixes

See also

• Jobs: progress, log and undo of background work
• AI: AI key, features and cost
• Workflow: approvals before changes are written
• Products: product data and new product drafts
• Quality: other checks of the catalog
• Access: roles and permissions
• Glossary