Image, sticker, background, and mask placeholders

Text aside, Pixel Wrangler ships four placeholder types. Each does a specific job. Mix them inside one template. Image placeholders have their own tool in the builder; stickers and backgrounds live in Graphic Elements; masks and overlays in Masks & Overlays.

Image placeholders#

The customer uploads a photo. The most common placeholder type — faces, pets, logos, artwork.

1. Pick the Image Placeholders tool and click + (Add image placeholder). Up to 10 per template.
2. Drag the slot into place and size it — or use the 1:1, 4:5 or 2:3 ratio buttons under Image Placeholder Size.
3. Under Image Placeholder Settings:
   • Position locked — the customer can't move or resize the slot. With Hide border the slot outline disappears too.
   • Fill frame — the upload is scaled to cover the whole slot instead of fitting inside it.

What customers can upload: PNG, JPEG and SVG, up to 10 MB by default, at least 300 px on each side. Change the limits in Settings → Image Upload Limits. There's no soft "low resolution" warning — an image that clears the minimum is accepted — so set Minimum Dimensions to what your print actually needs.

If you want the upload cropped to a shape (a profile-picture circle, a heart), pair the image placeholder with a mask on the same layer.

With Wrangler AI on, customers can also remove an upload's background, generate an image from a prompt, or restyle their upload.

Stickers#

Pre-set decorative elements the customer toggles on. Useful for repeatable accents — hearts on a card, stars on a birthday product, a brand crest on a uniform.

1. Pick the Graphic Elements tool and click Manage stickers →. Tick stickers from your Design Assets library or Add a sticker (PNG with transparency works best).
2. Each sticker gets a position and size on the canvas. Select it to set Element Size, or Position locked / Hide border under Element Settings.
3. Drag the tiles to change layering. The eye icon hides a sticker from the customer without removing it.

Stickers are your artwork the customer can place. Image placeholders are artwork the customer brings.

Letting customers add the same sticker many times#

By default a sticker is an on/off switch: tap to add, tap again to remove, one copy in the position you set. For free-form products — a scatter of stars, a border of hearts — turn on multi-select:

1. In Graphic Elements, expand Sticker settings (it appears once the template has stickers).
2. Switch on Allow customers to add the same sticker multiple times.
3. Save.

Now every tap adds another copy, offset from the last, and a small counter on the tile shows how many are on the current side. Customers move, resize and rotate each copy independently and remove one with the × handle on the canvas (or the Delete key). Copies are tracked per side and render in previews, print files and order edits exactly as placed. Surcharges are unaffected.

Backgrounds#

The base layer that sits behind everything else. Click Manage backgrounds → in Graphic Elements and pick images from your library, or Add a background.

• Customers choose one background per side.
• If you don't add any background options, the canvas shows your base image — the blank product photo. For many products that's the right call. The blank is the background.
• For variant-specific blanks (a black tee for Black, white for White) use Variant Images rather than backgrounds.

Masks and overlays#

Both live in the Masks & Overlays tool (Manage masks & overlays →). One switch decides which is which:

• Mask mode on — the shape cuts the canvas. Pair it with an image placeholder for circles, hearts, brand-shaped frames — anything you can express as a PNG cutout. Use masks when the customer's photo needs to fit a non-rectangular product area: phone cases, lockets, ornaments.
• Mask mode off — an overlay that sits on top of the artwork: a frame, a fixed logo, a texture.

Per element you also get Position locked, Hide border, and Selectable — whether the customer can toggle it on and off, or it always shows.

How layers stack#

Every element lives on a layer, and each side has up to 3 layers. The Layers list in the right-hand panel shows them top to bottom — top of the list is front of the canvas. Drag to reorder; use the … menu to Hide, Rename, Duplicate or Delete.

Within a layer, the tile order in each tool (drag to rearrange) sets the layering of that element type. A typical stack, bottom to top: background → image placeholders → masks (on the same layer as the image they clip) → stickers → text.

The customer's live preview reflects the layer order exactly as the print file will render it.

What's next#

Templates that ship serious money usually combine all four. See Templates 101 for how the pieces fit, Design Assets for the libraries behind them, then Sides and output files for multi-sided products.