Managing Dynamic Media image presets managing-image-presets

CAUTION
AEM 6.4 has reached the end of extended support and this documentation is no longer updated. For further details, see our technical support periods. Find the supported versions here.

Image Presets enable AEM Assets to dynamically deliver images at different sizes, in different formats, or with other image properties that are generated dynamically. Each Image Preset represents a predefined collection of sizing and formatting commands for displaying images. When you create an Image Preset, you choose a size for image delivery. You also choose formatting commands so that the appearance of the image is optimized when the image is delivered for viewing.

Administrators can create presets for exporting assets. Users can choose a preset when they export images, which also reformats images to the specifications that the administrator specifies.

You can also create image presets that are responsive. If you apply a responsive image preset to your assets, they change depending on the device or screensize they are viewed on. You can configure image presets to use CMYK in the color space in addition to RGB or Gray.

This section describes how to create, modify, and generally manage image presets. You can apply an image preset to an image anytime you preview it. See Applying Image Presets.

NOTE
Smart imaging works with your existing image presets and uses intelligence at the last millisecond of delivery to further reduce image file size based on browser or network connection speed. See Smart Imaging for more information.

Understanding Dynamic Media image presets understanding-image-presets

Like a software macro, an Image Preset is a predefined collection of sizing and formatting commands saved under a name. To understand how Image Presets work, suppose your web site requires each product image to appear in different sizes, different formats, and compression rates for desktop and mobile delivery.

You could create two Image Presets: one with 500 x 500 pixels for desktop version and 150 x 150 pixels for the mobile version. You create two Image Presets, one called Enlarge to display images at 500x500 pixels and one called Thumbnail to display images at 150 x 150 pixels. To deliver images at the Enlarge and Thumbnail size, AEM looks up the definition of the Enlarge Image Preset and Thumbnail Image Preset. Then AEM dynamically generates an image at the size and formatting specifications of each Image Preset.

Images that are reduced in size when they are delivered dynamically can lose sharpness and detail. For this reason, each Image Preset contains formatting controls for optimizing an image when it is delivered at a particular size. These controls make sure that your images are sharp and clear when they are delivered to your web site or application.

Administrators can create Image Presets. To create an image preset, you can start from scratch or you can start from an existing one and save it under a new name.

Managing Dynamic Media image presets managing-image-presets-1

You manage your image presets in AEM by tapping the AEM logo to access the global navigation console and then tapping the Tools icon and navigating to Assets > Image Presets.

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NOTE
Any image presets you create are also available as dynamic renditions when you preview or deliver assets.
In Dynamic Media - Scene7 mode, you do not need to publish image presets as image presets are automatically published.
In Dynamic Media - Hybrid mode, you need to manually publish image presets.
See Publishing Image Presets.
NOTE
The system shows a variety of renditions when you select Renditions in an asset’s Detail View. You can increase or decrease the number of image presets that display. See Increasing the number of image presets that display.

Adobe Illustrator (AI), Postscript (EPS), and PDF file formats adobe-illustrator-ai-postscript-eps-and-pdf-file-formats

If you intend to support the ingestion of AI, EPS, and PDF files so that you can generate dynamic renditions of these file formats, you may want to review the following information before you create image presets.

Adobe Illustrator’s file format is a variant of PDF. The main differences, in the context of AEM Assets, is the following:

  • Adobe Illustrator documents consist of a single page with multiple layers. Each layer is extracted as a PNG sub-asset under the main Illustrator asset.
  • PDF documents consist of one or more pages. Each page is extracted as a single page PDF sub-asset under the main multi-page PDF document.

The sub-assets are created by the Create Sub Asset process component within the overall DAM Update Asset workflow. To see this process component within the workflow, tap Tools > Workflow > Models > DAM Update Asset > Edit.

See also Viewing pages of a multi-page file.

You can view the sub-assets or the pages when you open the asset, tap the Content menu, and select Subassets or Pages. The sub-assets are real assets. That is, PDF pages are extracted by the Create Sub Asset workflow component. They are then stored as page1.pdf, page2.pdf, and so on below the main asset. After they are stored, the DAM Update Asset workflow processes them.

To use Dynamic Media to preview and generate dynamic renditions for AI, EPS or PDF files, the following processing steps are required:

  1. In the DAM Update Asset workflow, the Rasterize PDF/AI Image Preview Rendition process component rasterizes the first page of the original asset–using the configured resolution–into a cqdam.preview.png rendition.

  2. The cqdam.preview.png rendition is then optimized into a PTIFF by the Dynamic Media Process Image Assets process component within the workflow.

NOTE
In the DAM Update Asset workflow, the EPS thumbnails step generates thumbnails for EPS files.

PDF/AI/EPS asset metadata properties pdf-ai-eps-asset-metadata-properties

Metadata property
Description
dam:Physicalwidthininches
Document width in inches.
dam:Physicalheightininches
Document height in inches.

You access Rasterize PDF/AI Image Preview Rendition process component options by way of the DAM Update Asset workflow.

Tap on Adobe Experience Manager in the upper left, navigate to Tools > Workflow > Models. On the Workflow Models page, select DAM Update Asset, then on the toolbar tap Edit. On the DAM Update Asset workflow page, double-tap the Rasterize PDF/AI Image Preview Rendition process component to open its Step Properties dialog box.

Rasterize PDF/AI image preview rendition options rasterize-pdf-ai-image-preview-rendition-options

Arguments to rasterize PDF or AI workflow

Arguments to rasterize PDF or AI workflow

Process Argument
Default setting
Description
Mime Types

application/pdf

application/postscript

application/illustrator

List of document mime-types that are considered to be PDF or Illustrator documents.
Max Width
2048
Maximum width of the generated preview rendition, in pixels.
Max Height
2048
Maximum height of the generated preview rendition, in pixels.
Resolution
72
Resolution to rasterize the first page, in ppi (pixels per inch).

Using the default process arguments, the first page of a PDF/AI document is rasterized at 72 ppi and the generated preview image is sized at 2048 x 2048 pixels. For a typical deployment, you may want to increase the resolution to a minimum of 150 ppi or more. For example, a US letter size document at 300 ppi requires a maximum width and height of 2550 x 3300 pixels, respectively.

Max Width and Max Height limit the resolution at which to rasterize. For example, if the maximums are unchanged, and Resolution is set to 300 ppi, a US Letter document is rasterized at 186 ppi. That is, the document is 1581 x 2046 pixels.

The Rasterize PDF/AI Image Preview Rendition process component has a maximum defined to ensure that it does not create overly large images in memory. Such large images can overflow the memory provided to the JVM (Java Virtual Machine). Care must be taken to provide the JVM with enough memory to manage the configured number of parallel workflows, with each having the potential to create an image at the maximum configured size.

InDesign (INDD) file format indesign-indd-file-format

If you intend to support the ingestion of INDD files so that you can generate dynamic rendition of this file format, you may want to review the following information before you create image presets.

For InDesign files, sub assets are extracted only if the Adobe InDesign server is integrated with AEM. Referenced assets are linked based on their metadata. InDesign Server is not required for linking. However, the referenced assets must be present within AEM before the InDesign files are processed for the links to be created between the InDesign files and the referenced assets.

See Integrating AEM Assets with InDesign Server.

The Media Extraction process component in the DAM Update Asset workflow runs several preconfigured Extend Scripts to process InDesign files.

The Extend Script paths in the arguments of Media Extraction process

The Extend Script paths in the arguments of Media Extraction process component in the DAM Update Asset workflow.

The following scripts, are used by Dynamic Media integration:

Extend Script name
Default
Description
ThumbnailExport.jsx
Yes
Generates a 300 ppi thumbnail.jpg rendition that is optimized and turned into a PTIFF rendition by Dynamic Media Process Image Assets process component.
JPEGPagesExport.jsx
Yes
Generates a 300 ppi JPEG sub-asset for each page. The JPEG sub-asset is a real asset stored under the InDesign asset. It is also optimized and turned into a PTIFF by the DAM Update Asset workflow.
PDFPagesExport.jsx
No
Generates a PDF sub-asset for each page. The PDF sub-asset gets processed as described earlier. Because the PDF contains a single page only, no sub-assets are generated.

Configuring Image Thumbnail Size configuring-image-thumbnail-size

You can configure the size of thumbnails by configuring those settings in the DAM Update Asset workflow. There are two steps in the workflow where you can configure the thumbnail size of image assets. Although one (Dynamic Media Process Image Assets) is used for dynamic image assets and the other (Process Thumbnails) for static thumbnail generation or when all other processes fail to generate thumbnails, both should have the same settings.

With the Dynamic Media Process Image Assets step, thumbnails are generated by the image server, and this configuration is independent of the configuration applied to the Process Thumbnails step. Generating thumbnails through the Process Thumbnails step is the slowest and most memory intensive way to create thumbnails.

Thumbnail sizing is defined in the following format: widthcenter, for example 80:80:false. The width and height determine the size in pixels of the thumbnail; the center value is either false or true and if set to true, it indicates that the thumbnail image has exactly the size given in the configuration. If the resized image is smaller, it will be centered within the thumbnail.

NOTE
  • Thumbnail size for EPS files are configured in the EPS thumbnails step, in the Arguments tab under Thumbnails.

  • Thumbnail size for videos are configured in the FFmpeg thumbnails step, in the Process tab under Arguments.

To configure thumbnail size:

  1. Tap Tools > Workflow > Models > DAM Update Asset > Edit.

  2. Tap the Dynamic Media Process Image Assets step, then tap the Thumbnails tab. Change the thumbnail size, as needed, then tap OK.

    step_properties_thumbnailarguments

  3. Tap the Process Thumbnails step, then tap the Thumbnails tab. Change the thumbnail size, as needed, and tap OK.

    note note
    NOTE
    The values in the thumbnails argument in the Process Thumbnails step must match the thumbnails argument in the Dynamic Media Process Image Assets step.
  4. Tap Save to save the changes to the workflow.

Increasing or decreasing the number of Dynamic Media image presets that display increasing-or-decreasing-the-number-of-image-presets-that-display

Image presets you create are available as dynamic renditions when you preview assets. AEM shows a variety of dynamic renditions when viewing an assets from Detail View > Renditions. You can increase or decrease the limit of renditions that are displayed.

To increase or decrease the number of Dynamic Media image presets displayed:

  1. Navigate to CRXDE Lite (http://localhost:4502/crx/de).

  2. Navigate to the image preset listing node at /libs/dam/gui/coral/content/commons/sidepanels/imagepresetsdetail/imgagepresetslist

    increase_decreasethenumberofimagepresetsthatdisplay

  3. In the limit property, change the value, which is set to 15 by default, to the desired number.

  4. Navigate to the image preset datasource at /libs/dam/gui/coral/content/commons/sidepanels/imagepresetsdetail/imgagepresetslist/datasource

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  5. In the limit property, change the number to the desired number, for example {empty requestPathInfo.selectors[1] ? "20" : requestPathInfo.selectors[1]}

  6. Tap Save All.

Creating Dynamic Media image presets creating-image-presets

Creating a Dynamic Media image preset lets you apply those settings to any images when previewing or publishing.

NOTE
If you use Internet Explorer 9, creating a preset does not appear in the preset list immediately after saving. To work around this issue, disable the cache for IE9.

If you intend to support the ingestion of AI, PDF, and EPS files so that you can generate dynamic rendition of these file formats, you may want to review the following information before you create image presets.
See Adobe Illustrator (AI), Postscript (EPS), and PDF file formats.

If you intend to support the ingestion of INDD files so that you can generate dynamic rendition of this file format, you may want to review the following information before you create image presets. See InDesign (INDD) file format.

NOTE
To create Dynamic Media image presets, you must have administrator privileges as an AEM administrator or Admin Console administrator.

To create a Dynamic Media image preset:

  1. In AEM, tap the AEM logo to access the global navigation console.

  2. Tap the Tools icon, then navigate to Assets > Image Presets.

  3. Tap Create.

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    note note
    NOTE
    To make this image preset responsive, erase the values in the width and height fields and leave them blank.
  4. On the Edit Image Preset page, enter values into the Basic and Advanced tabs as appropriate, including a name. The options are outlined in Image Preset Options. Presets appear in the left pane and can be used on-the-fly with other assets.

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  5. Click Save.

Creating a responsive image preset creating-a-responsive-image-preset

To create a responsive image preset, perform the steps in Creating Image Presets. When entering the height and width in the Edit Image Preset window, erase the values and leave them blank.

Leaving them blank tells AEM that this image preset is responsive. You can adjust the other values as appropriate.

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NOTE
In order to see the URL and RESS buttons when applying an image preset to an asset, the asset must be published.
In Dynamic Media - Scene7 mode, image presets and image assets are automatically published.
In Dynamic Media - Hybrid mode, you must manually publish image presets and image assets.

Image Preset options image-preset-options

When you create or edit image presets, you have the options described in this section. In addition, Adobe recommends the following three best practice option choices to start:

  • Format (Basic tab) – Select JPEG or another format that meets your requirements. All web browsers support the JPEG image format; it offers a good balance between small files sizes and image quality. However, JPEG format images use a lossy compression scheme that can introduce unwanted image artifacts if the compression setting is too low. For that reason, Adobe recommends setting the compression quality to 75. This setting offers a good balance between image quality and small file size.
  • Enable Simple Sharpening – Do not select Enable Simple Sharpening (this sharpening filter offers less control than Unsharp Masking settings).
  • Sharpening: Resampling Mode – Select Sharp2.

Basic tab options basic-tab-options

Field
Description
Name
Enter a descriptive name without any blank spaces. Include the image-size specification in the name to help users identify this Image Preset.
Width and Height
Enter in pixels the size at which the image is delivered. Width and height must be larger than 0 pixels. If either value is 0, then no preset is created. If both values are blank, a responsive image preset is created.
Format

Choose a format from the menu.

Choosing JPEG offers the following additional options:

  • Quality - Controls the JPEG compression level. This setting affects both file size and image quality. The JPEG quality scale is 1-100. Scale is visible when you drag the slider.
  • Enable JPG Chrominance Downsampling - Because the eye is less sensitive to high-frequency color information than high-frequency luminance, JPEG images divide image information into luminance and color components. When a JPEG image is compressed, the luminance component is left at full resolution, while the color components are downsampled by averaging together groups of pixels. Downsampling reduces the data volume by one half or one third with almost no impact on perceived quality. Downsampling is not applicable to grayscale images. This technique reduces the amount of compression useful for images with high contrast (for example, images with overlaid text).

Choosing GIF or GIF with alpha provides these additional GIF Color Quantization options:

  • Type - Select Adaptive (the default), Web, or Macintosh. If you select GIF with Alpha, the Macintosh option is not available.
  • Dither - Select Diffuse or Off.
  • Number of Colors - Enter a number between 2 and 256.
  • Color List - Enter a comma-separated list. For example, for white, gray, and black, enter 000000,888888,ffffff.

Choosing PDF, TIFF, or TIFF with alpha provides this additional option:

  • Compression - Select a compression algorithm. Algorithm options for PDF are None, Zip, and Jpeg; for TIFF are None, LZW, Jpeg, and Zip; and for TIFF with Alpha are None, LZW, and Zip.

Choosing PNG, PNG with Alpha, or EPS provides no additional options.

Sharpening
Select the Enable Simple Sharpening option to apply a basic sharpening filter to the image after all scaling takes place. Sharpening can help compensate for blurriness that can result when you display an image at a different size.

Advanced tab options advanced-tab-options

Field
Description
Color Space
Select RGB, CMYK, or Grayscale for the color space.
Color Profile
Select the output color space profile that the asset should be converted to if it is different than the working profile.
Render Intent

You can override the default rendering intent. Rendering intents determine what happens to colors that cannot be reproduced in the target color profile (out of gamut). The Render Intent is ignored if it is not compatible with the ICC profile.

  • Select Perceptual to compress the total gamut from one color space into another color space when one or more colors in the original image is out of the gamut of the destination color space.
  • Select Relative Colorimetric when a color in the current color space is out of gamut in the target color space and you want to map it to the closest possible color within the gamut of the target color space without affecting any other colors.
  • Select Saturation to reproduce the original image color saturation when converting into the target color space.
  • Select Absolute Colorimetric to match colors exactly with no adjustment for white point or black point that would alter the image's brightness.
Blackpoint Compensation
Select this option if the output profile supports this feature. Blackpoint compensation is ignored if it is not compatible with the specified ICC profile.
Dithering
Select this option to possibly avoid or reduce color banding artifacts.
Sharpening Type

Select None, Sharpen, or Unsharp Mask.

  • Select None to disable sharpening.
  • Select Sharpen to apply a basic sharpening filter to the image after all scaling takes place. Sharpening can help compensate for blurriness that can result when you display an image at a different size.
  • Select Unsharp mask to fine-tune a sharpening filter effect on the final downsampled image. You can control intensity of effect, radius of the effect (measured in pixels) and a threshold of contrast that will be ignored. This effect uses the same options as Photoshop’s “Unsharp Mask” filter.

In Unsharp Mask, you have the following options:

  • Amount - Controls the amount of contrast applied to edge pixels. The default real number value is 1.0. For high-resolution images, you can increase it to as high as 5.0. Think of Amount as a measure of filter intensity.
  • Radius - Determines the number of pixels surrounding the edge pixels that affect the sharpening. For high-resolution images, enter a real number from 1 through 2. A low value sharpens only the edge pixels; a high value sharpens a wider band of pixels. The correct value depends on the size of the image.
  • Threshold - Determines the range of contrast to ignore when the unsharp mask filter is applied. In other words, this option determines how different the sharpened pixels must be from the surrounding area before they are considered edge pixels and are sharpened. To avoid introducing noise, experiment with integer values between 2 and 20.
  • Apply to - Determines whether the unsharpening applies to each color or brightness.

Sharpening is described in Adobe Dynamic Media Classic Image Quality and Sharpening Best Practices.

Resampling Mode

Select a Resampling mode option. These options sharpen the image when it is downsampled:

  • Bi-Linear - The fastest resampling method. Some aliasing artifacts are noticeable.
  • Bi-Cubic - Increases CPU usage but yields sharper images with less noticeable aliasing artifacts.
  • Sharp2 - Can produce slightly sharper results than Bi-Cubic, but at an even higher CPU cost.
  • Bi-Sharp - Selects Photoshop default resampler for reducing image size, which is called bicubic sharper in Adobe Photoshop.
  • Each Color and Brightness - each method can be based on color or brightness. By default Each Color is selected.
Print resolution
Select a resolution for printing this image; 72 pixels is the default.
Image Modifier

Beyond the common image settings available in the UI, Dynamic Media supports numerous advanced image modifications that you can specify in the Image Modifiers field. These parameters are defined in the Image Server Protocol command reference.

Important: The following functionality listed in the API is not supported:

  • Basic templating and text rendering commands: text= textAngle= textAttr= textFlowPath= textFlowXPath= textPath= and textPs=
  • Localization commands: locale= and req=xlate
  • req=set is not available for general usage.
  • req=mbrset
  • req=saveToFile
  • req=targets
  • template=
  • Non-core Dynamic Media services: SVG, Image Rendering, and Web-to-Print

Defining Image Preset options with image modifiers defining-image-preset-options-with-image-modifiers

Besides the options available in the Basic and Advanced tabs, you can define image modifiers to give you more options when you define image presets. Image rendering relies on the Dynamic Media Image Rendering API. The API is defined in detail in the HTTP Protocol Reference.

The following are some basic examples of what you can do with image modifiers.

NOTE
Some image modifiers cannot be used in AEM.
  • op_invert - Inverts each color component for a negative image effect.

    code language-xml
    &op_invert=1
    

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  • op_blur - Applies a blur filter to the image.

    code language-xml
    &op_blur=25
    

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  • Combined commands - op_blur and op-invert

    code language-xml
    &op_invert=1&op_blur=25
    

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  • op_brightness - Decreases or increases the brightness.

    code language-xml
    &op_brightness=75
    

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  • opac - Adjusts image opacity. Lets you decrease the foreground opacity.

    code language-xml
    opac=50
    

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Editing Image Presets modifying-image-presets

To edit image presets:

  1. In AEM, tap the AEM logo to access the global navigation console.

  2. Tap the Tools icon, then navigate to Assets > Image Presets.

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  3. Select a preset, then tap Edit.

  4. On the Edit Image Presets page, make the changes you want, then tap Save.

Publishing Dynamic Media image presets publishing-image-presets

If you are running Dynamic Media - Hybrid mode, you must manually publish image presets.

If you are running Dynamic Media - Scene7 mode, image presets are automatically published for you; you do not need to complete these steps.

To publish image presets in Dynamic Media - Hybrid mode:

  1. In AEM, tap the AEM logo to access the global navigation console.

  2. Tap the Tools icon, then navigate to Assets > Image Presets.

  3. Select the image preset or multiple image presets from the list of image presets, then tap Publish.

  4. After the image preset is published, the status changes from unpublished to published.

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Deleting Dynamic Media image presets deleting-image-presets

  1. In AEM, tap the AEM logo to access the global navigation console.
  2. Tap the Tools icon, then navigate to Assets > Image Presets.
  3. Select a preset, then tap Delete. Dynamic Media confirms that you want to delete it. Tap Delete.
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