The Images library

Images is in the menu bar at the top of CataSEO, after Blog.

It appears on BigCommerce, Shopify and WooCommerce stores. Wix stores don’t have an Images tab — CataSEO doesn’t keep an image library for a Wix site.

Every picture CataSEO created or you uploaded through CataSEO, newest first. Pictures that were already in your platform’s own file library aren’t listed here — they’re offered as a starting point when you create a new one, on platforms whose library CataSEO can read.

Each tile shows the picture and its alt text, or “(no alt text)” if it hasn’t got any, and is marked Used on a post when it appears on one of your blog posts.

Search images searches filenames and alt text.

Click a picture to open it full size. The panel there shows its alt text, when it was added, its source — Created with CataSEO or Uploaded — and whether it’s used on a post. Copy URL copies the picture’s address, which is how you put it somewhere CataSEO doesn’t reach.

Click Upload and pick one or more files. PNG and JPEG only, up to 20MB each. A picture wider or taller than 1800 pixels is resized down to fit when it’s stored.

A newly uploaded picture can take a moment to appear while your platform finishes processing it.

Click Create image. CataSEO asks how you’d like to start:

• Start from a product — pick one of your products and one of its photos to use as a reference. CataSEO then proposes four picture ideas grounded in that product.
• Start from scratch — describe the picture you want, with or without one of your photos to start from.

Then set:

• Aspect ratio — Square (1:1), Portrait (3:4), Landscape (4:3), Wide (3:2) or Widescreen (16:9).
• What else the picture should show — colours, setting, mood, what to leave out.

Click Generate. Generate again produces another version; Keep adds the one you like to your store’s files.

CataSEO generates the setting, not the product. When you start from one of your photos, your product is kept exactly as you photographed it and only the scene and lighting around it are generated. The screen says so: “CataSEO generates the setting, not the product itself.”

A picture CataSEO generates is checked before you see it, and a generation that would have drawn the item your shopper is buying is rejected rather than shown.

The image generator also sometimes declines a description outright. CataSEO says “The image generator would not draw that” and you can describe it differently.

Creating a picture uses 1 express token for the first generation in a session, and every Generate again in that same session is free. Closing the window and opening Create image again starts a new session, so the next first generation is charged again.

The same rule applies inside a blog post: the first picture generated for a post costs 1 express token, and retries on that post are free.

Nothing is charged for a generation that fails, and nothing is charged for uploading your own pictures.

CataSEO writes alt text for a picture as it generates it, at no extra charge, and that text comes with the picture when you keep it. You can see it in the lightbox panel and under each tile.

Tick Also add to this product while generating from one of your products, and the picture goes onto that product’s page in your store as well as into your library.

If the picture lands in your library but adding it to the product fails, CataSEO tells you and you can press Keep again to retry.

• Shopify — in your own Content > Files library, where you’d expect to find them in your Shopify admin.
• BigCommerce and WooCommerce — hosted by CataSEO at a permanent public address, which your storefront links to. BigCommerce’s Image Manager offers no way for an app to add a file, so CataSEO hosts the picture instead; on WooCommerce, putting pictures into your WordPress media library is something CataSEO may do later.

Either way the picture is reachable from your storefront, and Copy URL gives you its address.

Open the picture and click Delete. Two rules:

• CataSEO only deletes pictures it created or that you uploaded through CataSEO. It will never delete your own product photos or anything else in your platform’s library.
• A picture that’s still used on a blog post can’t be deleted. Remove it from the post first.