How does the Designs tool choose colors for my product?
When you upload a design, the Designs tool automatically decides which of your garment colors it will actually use — and picks one to feature as the default image. Here's how that works, and how to change it if it doesn't match what you want.
How colors are chosen
You set up to 16 garment colors in Settings. These are the colors Designs will try to use — but it doesn't guarantee all of them will make it onto every product.
For each design, Designs automatically checks how well the artwork reads against each color, and removes any color where the design wouldn't be visible enough — for example, a white design on a white shirt. You’ll see an explanation of why a color was removed when you hover over the color name or in the Timeline tab.
- Colors with weaker, but still visible, contrast may stay in with a warning instead of being removed.
For multicolor or gradient designs, double-check the result yourself — this automatic check is more limited for these kinds of designs.
Changing the featured (default) image
Designs also picks one color to be the featured image for your product — you'll see it marked with a star. This uses the same contrast logic as the color check above, so it doesn't always match what you'd choose yourself.
To change it:
- Open Edit product
- Move the star to a different color's mockup.
Adding a removed color back
A removed color isn't permanent. If Designs excluded a color you actually want to keep, open Edit product >>>> Edit Colors and add it back manually.
Designs will still generate a mockup for it, even though its automatic check originally excluded it. You can also remove the colors you don't wish to use.
If you have more colors than Designs can use at once
If your colors naturally split into groups — for example, 8 light colors and 8 dark colors — you can now fit up to 16 into a single palette. If you have more than that, you can still switch your selected colors in Settings between upload batches.
Set your first group of colors, upload those designs, then switch to the next group and upload again.
For full manual control over which colors are used, with no automatic filtering, use Import Designs instead.
Updated on: 27/10/2026
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