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Image resolution management

Image resolution management requires an integration between configuration and usage so that both serve a global image management strategy in your organization. Tridion Docs provides numerous configuration settings for image resolutions to provide a high-degree of control and flexibility for various situations.

The Resolution property of image objects

When an image is added to the Repository, whether by a user or some other process, the image receives a Resolution property. This property determines how the image can be used in the system, for example, whether this specific image resolution will be selected and exported during publishing. The value that is selected for the property usually depends on the image format. For example, the Low resolution is selected because the image is a PNG file.

Each image may require multiple resolutions for different purposes. In such cases, you can store multiple formats in the repository, each having a different Resolution property, which will then be used for the different situations, such as a lower resolution for use in publishing to a web format and a high resolution version for publishing to PDF or other printable format.

By default, creating additional resolutions in the Repository is a manual action that is performed in Organize Space only. Content Manager can, however, be customized to automatically create low resolution images from high quality or source images.

Two example scenarios

Determining what resolutions you need to use in your implementation requires some careful analysis of your organization's needs and plans for how to proceed with configuring and managing resolutions, consider the following general scenarios:

Scenario 1: Basic image storage

The needs for image management are minimal. The images will be uploaded and stored are the system, but ongoing editing and management of the images will be done outside of the system.

Publishing will be mainly to an online format, although some publications will be printed and require high-quality images. Overall, for both display within the system and for most publishing, the image formats need to be lightweight and well performing, such as provided by the PNG format.

For these requirements, you can use the simple setup that comes with Tridion Docs:
  • Two resolutions are used: Low and High.
  • The resolution of most images is set to Low at the time the image is uploaded.
  • All configuration settings for resolutions are set to Low.
  • Users add high-resolution images, with the High resolution, as needed for use in publications that need to be printed.
Scenario 2: Advanced image management

In a more advanced scenario, images are not simply uploaded and used in publications as is. Users will manage and version Photoshop (PSD) source files in Tridion Docs, but they also need to open and edit the files in Photoshop.

Publishing requires high-resolution JPEG images because the output needs to be printed. For display within the system, lightweight and well performing are desired.

In this more complex scenario, the following custom setup will work nicely:
  • For the Photoshop files, a custom resolution called Source is created and used.
  • A rendition server (set up especially for the customer) generates secondary Low and High resolutions from the Source resolution.
  • A system default resolution is set to Source because it is the primary image resolution that users will work with.
  • A preview resolution is set to Low because the default resolution cannot be displayed in a web browser or in the XML editor.
  • When users create a publication, they set the publication's working resolution to Source. For new publication versions, the user can select a different working resolutions, as needed.

System-wide resolution values

After establishing your image management strategy, you need to define the resolutions you will use system-wide as a simple list of values. For publishing, you also need to define the output formats, which includes resolution settings.

The following diagram illustrates these settings and their high-level impact in the system:

After establishing your image management strategy, you need to define the Resolution list of values, which is configurable in Organize Space under Settings > System > List of Values.

The out-of-the-box values are: Low, High and Thumbnail. In most cases, you will need to adapt the list to your organization's specific needs. Be sure to consider the following:

  • What resolution(s) are required for your publishing process? If published content needs to be printed, the repository needs to store high-definition images. The High resolution can be used for these images. On the other hand, when publishing to online formats, you need a lighter-weight format that offers good performance. The Low resolution can be used for these images.
  • What image formats do your content authors need to maintain and edit? Are the images mostly screen captures that can be edited in a simple image editor, or will they require specialized tools and formats such as Photoshop or Visio? You might need to create an additional resolution, perhaps called Source or Master, for storing and managing source images in other formats.
  • Which resolution should you use to preview the images in the repository and in the XML editor? Almost always, you want a light-weight resolution for this purpose, and so the Low resolution can be used.

Output formats for publishing

Based on the publishing requirements, you will need to define output formats. Each format includes settings that control which resolution(s) will be used when publishing to that specific format. These settings are defined in Organize Space under Settings > System > Output Formats.

Output Format settingDescription and impact on publishing
Resolutions prioritized

A list of one or more resolutions to use for the output format. The first value in the list should be the resolution you want to see included in the topics. By default, the other resolutions are only used by custom publishing processes.

We recommend specifying only one resolution value in this field unless you have custom publishing processes that require a specific image resolution. The standard publishing process will use only the first specified value, but will add constraints related to all specified values in order to set the published result status to Release Candidate.

Resolutions to export

A property that controls whether all of the output's resolutions (those defined in the Resolutions prioritized field) should be exported during publishing or only the first matching resolution.

Configuring resolutions for Organize Space and Collective Spaces

Organize Space also includes several resolution settings that affect how resolutions are used and displayed in the web user interfaces, namely Organize Space and Collective Spaces.

The following diagram illustrates these settings and their impact in the system:

The following table describes the three system-wide default resolutions, which are defined under Settings > System > Default Settings.

System default settingDescription and impact on the user interface
Default resolution

Defines the overall default resolution for the Content Manager implementation.

This value is used in a variety of situations, including the following:
  • When a user creates a new image, they are presented with a list of editor templates for this resolution.
  • When a user views a list of images within a folder (at the logical level), the list and details in the right pane are for this resolution specifically.
Preview resolution

Defines the resolution to use when previewing images.

To ensure good user interface performance, set to a resolution that is associated with a light image format. For example: Low

When a Draft Space or Review Space user looks at a topic containing an image, the image is shown in the resolution that is specified as the value for this property.

Grid resolution

Defines the resolution that Organize Space will use when displaying a list of images in the optional grid layout, or grid view.

The grid view is primarily useful to users while working with images, but applies also to non-image objects. For non-images, the grid view shows a larger icon representation of the object type.

The grid view is available in Organize Space when working in the Content area from any of these tabs: Structured content, Inbox and Search.

Two additional resolutions settings are specifically for controlling resolution display in Collective Spaces and they can be defined in Organize Space under Settings > XML settings > Collective Spaces.

Collective Spaces settingDescription and impact on the user interface
Review resolution

You can define the review resolution setting to change the image resolution that is used in Collective Spaces whenever a user chooses the option to view an image in the review resolution.

If the review resolution does not display images clearly or with enough detail, you can configure it so that Collective Spaces uses one of the other Tridion Docs image resolutions, such as "High".

Preferred resolution for image uploads

When image upload is enabled in Draft Space, you can specify a preferred resolution for uploads.

Image upload is enabled by default.

Settings for the desktop client tools

In general, the resolution settings that affect a user's work in Publication Manager and Authoring Bridge are defined within the client tools themselves.

The following diagram illustrates the settings that are intended for users of the client tools:

After installing and starting Publication Manager, each user needs to create and configure their account. The account settings include two resolutions settings that supersedes the default values set at the system level in Organize Space.

The following table describes the account-specific settings.
Account's default settingDescription and impact in the user interface
Default resolutionDefines a general resolution for the account and work within the client tools.
This value is used in a variety of situations, including the following:
  • When a user creates a new image, they are presented with a list of editor templates for this resolution.
  • When a user views a list of images within a folder (at the logical level), the list and details in the right pane are for this resolution specifically.

To make it easy to open and edit images in the appropriate image format, select resolution that is associated with the editable image formats that are to be edited.

Preview resolution

Defines the resolution to use when previewing images.

In Publication Manager and Authoring Bridge, this resolution is used in various places that the user sees a preview of an image, such as in the Preview pane of Publication Manager's Content tab. This applies to both for a standalone image objects and images previewed within a topic.

To ensure good user interface performance, set to a resolution that is associated with a light image format. For example: Low

Users can also set the Preview resolution value to (Default), which means it will use whatever is defined as the Default resolution rather than a specific resolution.

Publication-specific Working Resolution

When your create a new publication, you set a Working Resolution. In contrast to the Default resolution, this property defines the resolution for authoring and managing images within the context of the specific publication

This resolution typically matches the primary image resolution you need to edit when working with the publication in Publication Manager.

The working resolution:
  • Should be a resolution that will always be available.
  • Will overrule the default resolution of the account.
  • Is used in publishing to determine if the image exists or not.