Three essentials cover almost everything — and the widget coaches shoppers through the rest. Here's exactly what's checked, what's rejected, and why.
The short version: The three essentials: fitted clothing, full body, good lighting. The only hard rejection is a photo with no visible body (shoulders to hips required — except on shoe pages, where feet in frame is what matters). Everything else — brightness, resolution, framing — produces friendly advice, not a block. You can surface the essentials to first-time shoppers with the Photo guidance switch in Widget Design.
What works: a full-body, front-facing photo in even lighting with fitted clothing. What struggles: sitting, facing away, baggy layers, harsh shadows, busy backgrounds.
| Check | What happens |
|---|---|
| File type & size | JPEG, PNG, WebP, or GIF, up to 10MB. Anything else gets a clear message. Photos are compressed on the shopper's device before upload, so normal phone photos are always fine. |
| Brightness, contrast, resolution, framing | Advisory only — the shopper sees a specific tip ("low contrast", "use a full-body portrait") but is never blocked. Real photos are imperfect; blocking them costs try-ons. |
| Body detection | The one hard gate: if no body is detected (shoulders + hips), the photo is rejected with a friendly ask for another one. This runs on the shopper's device. |
| Shoe pages | The body check relaxes — a legs-and-feet photo passes, and the copy switches to "upload a photo with your feet visible." |
Turn on Photo guidance: In Widget Design, the Photo guidance switch shows first-time shoppers the three essentials right on the welcome screen — one quiet line with a see-examples link. It's informational, never a gate: we tested a mandatory tips screen and it cost roughly a third of shoppers between tap and upload, so Ello will never block the flow with advice.
The honest limitation: Ello depicts the look; it doesn't measure the body. The widget says so to shoppers: body shapes and personal features may not be represented exactly. Never present try-on as a sizing tool — it's a confidence tool.
The only hard rejection is the body check: shoulders and hips must be visible. Sitting, heavy cropping, or facing fully away are the usual causes — the fix is a standing, full-body photo. On shoe product pages the check relaxes so feet-visible photos pass.
Files up to 10MB are accepted, and photos are compressed on the shopper's device before upload — a normal phone photo, front or back camera, is always within bounds.
No — quality checks are advisory. The shopper gets a specific tip about what to improve, but the try-on proceeds. Only a photo with no detectable body is turned away.
The three essentials: fitted clothing, full body, good lighting. If you want Ello to deliver that message for you, turn on Photo guidance in Widget Design — first-timers see it on the welcome screen.