Weekly Recap: More Virtual Group Control, New Sports Backgrounds & Better BGR Tools 🏈✨
Hey photo friends! 👋
Candy here with another weekly recap! This week brings more control to Virtual Group Builder, a much better home for Event Background Removal, new Candy Image Studio exposure tools, and—yes—27 new sports background sets. 😎
Let’s jump in!
🧑🤝🧑 Virtual Group Builder Additions
Ask and you shall receive... sometimes! We’ve gotten some good feedback on Virtual Group Builder, and this week several new controls are here to make layouts easier to fine-tune:
↕️ Force subjects onto different rows
- While dragging a subject, new Add to Row buttons appear over the other rows. Drop the subject there to explicitly move them where you want instead of relying entirely on automatic placement.
- Previously you were limited to automatically determined rows, you still have those but can now override them!
🔍 New logo size slider
- Adjust your corner logos to be smaller or larger than the default.
- Previously they could be considered a bit tiny, but this gives you a bit more control!
🌫️ Individual cutout fade control
- The Subject Inspector now has its own cutout fade intensity slider, separate from the global setting, so you can fine-tune individual subjects when needed.
- This will let you tweak the cutout fade intensity for subjects in the front row or on the sides of the virtual group, in case you're wanting a very specific look.
👥 Smarter merged-participant image selection
- The Subject Image Picker will only show images from merged participants when they share the same name.
- This typically does not matter, but in the case of a parent doing a Selfie Check-In of themselves and then of their child later, this will keep Virtual Groups working as expected!
Just a few additions, but very useful ones when you’re trying to get a Virtual Group looking just right!
🏈 27 New Sports Background Sets
Alright, shoutout to the random guy who told me (me being Candy, in case you forgot!) that he didn’t like the backgrounds. We heard you! 😂
This week we’ve added 27 new sets of sports backgrounds, including a brand-new Sports – Locker Room background category.
And, in case you missed it, last week we also added an AI Background Generator so you can create entirely new, modern backgrounds of your own.
A quick reminder... you already have a lot of control over which backgrounds your customers actually see:
🎨 Edit the default backgrounds in your Offers
📤 Upload your own custom backgrounds at both the Offer-level and Event-level
🤖 Generate new backgrounds of your own with AI
🏈 Choose from our (now growing) collection of built-in choices
We have a TON of default backgrounds—and yes, many have been around for a while—but you’re never locked into using them. You can build your own look for your business, and we’ll keep adding new options over time too.
✂️ New Dedicated Background Removal Page
Event Background Removal now has its own dedicated Dashboard page, accessible from the Event Sidebar. It is not longer just a popup!
The BGR toggle on Event Overview will take you there too, giving all of these controls a little more breathing room.
On the new page, you can:
✅ Enable or disable Background Removal
🖼️ Manage your Event Backgrounds
🎨 See your Offer Backgrounds with a direct link to the Offer
📊 See how many cutouts have finished and how many are still processing
⏳ Watch a live progress bar while Background Removal is working
📂 See all valid Event folders and which ones are marked for Background Removal
And if your Event is a new Event: ✂️ You can mark an existing folder for Background Removal even if it already contains images!!!
🎨 Candy Image Studio: Better Exposure Fixes
🌙 New Fix Underexposure node
- Helps recover images that came out too dark.
☀️ Fix Overexposure greatly improved
- The existing overexposure tool has been reworked for more reliable results.
🏈 Jersey Jotter Progress Tracking
⏳ New Jersey Jotter progress bar
- When Jersey Jotter is active and still has unprocessed images, its dedicated page now shows processing progress—similar to Candy Culler and the new Background Removal page.
This makes it much easier to tell whether recognition is still working through a large Event.
🛍️ Retail Improvements
✨ Titled Luxe Prints now work with package prefill
- Packages can now automatically prefill eligible Titled Luxe Print products just like other supported products.
🖼️ Titled Luxe Print package rendering fixed
- Fixed an issue where these products could render incorrectly inside packages.
🤖 AI-generated backgrounds now render correctly on products
🎨 Selected backgrounds now stay visible through the final product step
- Fixed an issue where the chosen background could sometimes disappear on renders when reaching quantity and finish steps.
📝 Several product descriptions updated
- Some product descriptions have been refreshed for better clarity.
🖼️ AI Edit + BGR Assignment Fix
👥 BGR versions of AI edits now keep direct participant assignments
- If the original non-AI image was directly assigned to someone, its Background Removed AI-edited version will now correctly inherit that relationship.
📦 Order Details Fix
📝 Package captions now display correctly
- Fixed cases where Order Details did not show caption information for certain products contained inside packages.
📱 Capture App 5.9.1 – iOS OTA
📸 Photo Booth fix for iPad
- Fixed the Photo Booth gallery strip being cut off on certain iPad models.
That’s the week!
More Virtual Group control, a much stronger Background Removal workflow, some useful exposure tools, and plenty of fresh sports backgrounds to work with.
And if you still don’t like the backgrounds... now you’ve got plenty of ways to show us how it’s done. 😉
Keep creating magic,
Candy 🍬
