Giving the AI a clean source with raw images

Raw images are reference photos of your product that our AI features work from. They're not part of your Etsy listing and buyers never see them. They exist so the AI knows what your product actually looks like.​

Why they matter

Without raw images, the AI works from your published listing photos. Those are usually styled: props, backgrounds, text overlays, a model holding the item, three products in one frame. Good for buyers, confusing for a machine.

The result is the AI misreading your product. It gets the material wrong, invents a feature, includes a prop as if it were part of the item, or produces something that isn't quite what you sell.

Give it clean photos instead and it has one clear source of truth. Fewer mistakes, and fewer images you pay to regenerate.

Where to add them

Open a listing in the Listing Editor, go to the Photos section, and switch to the Raw images tab. Upload from there.

Raw images are attached to that listing, so each listing has its own set.

What to upload

Clean photos of the product, and that's it. The cleaner the better.

• The product filling most of the frame

• A plain or simple background

• Decent light, so the color and texture read correctly

• A few different angles if you have them

• The details that matter: the clasp, the glaze, the stitching, the print quality

They don't need to be perfect, or edited, or good enough to publish. A well-lit phone photo against a plain wall does the job. This is reference material, not a portfolio.​

What not to upload

• Busy scenes with props, multiple products, or a lot going on in the frame

• Images with text on them (size charts, price graphics, promotional banners)

• Photos that aren't of this product

• Screenshots, mockups of mockups, or images you pulled off the internet

Each of these teaches the AI something wrong about your product, and you pay for that in credits later.

How they get used

You don't have to do anything else. When you open the AI Photo Studio for a listing, its raw images are used automatically.

Our other AI image features read from them too, so a listing with good raw images produces better output everywhere, not just in the Studio.

Raw images and your listing photos

These are two separate things:

• Listing photos are what goes on Etsy.

• Raw images are reference material for the AI. Uploading a raw image doesn't put it on your listing, and deleting one doesn't touch your published photos.

If you want a raw image to become a listing photo, add it to your listing photos separately.