When you automate the cropping of user-generated images in your Web application, some images inevitably get cropped in less than ideal ways. This article demonstrates how a content-aware algorithm can help to keep the areas of interest in your crops, regardless of the overall image layout. Includes code examples.
"Every image is unique in its content, and every visitor to your website has a different device, resolution, browser and network speed. It is challenging to deliver an optimal image to every user, especially when you need to scale that up to hundreds, thousands or millions of images."
This article discusses the challenges that web and mobile developers face and introduces a cloud based solution for automatic content-aware and context-aware image adaptation: automatic cropping, intelligent content-aware encoding, dynamic format selection and automatic responsive images using Client Hints.
This article describes cloud-based on-the-fly image manipulation URLs that support defining advanced conditions for dynamically generating different results based on each image's dimensions, aspect ratio, auto detected faces and more. Sample code included for Javascript, PHP, Node,js, Ruby on Rails and more.
This article introduces Cloudinary's new JavaScript library that accelerates web development by providing automated image manipulation and management with a few lines of code. The library is jQuery-free plain Javascript.
This post by Eric Portis explains how to adapt your images according to the art direction of your website's responsive layout using the HTML5 picture element, while dynamically generating cropped and resized versions of the images in the cloud using Cloudinary.
The article covers the challenges of selecting the optimal number of images for your responsive website and introduces the free Responsive Image Breakpoints Generator web tool.
This article explains how to create responsive images using modern HTML5 image tag techniques, while dynamically generating resized versions of the images in the cloud using Cloudinary. Dynamic manipulation URLs are included as well as code samples for Javascript, PHP, Node.js, Ruby on Rails and more.
This article explains how to automatically distort images using dynamic image manipulation URLs. You can consistently shape and customize your images to fit any underlying image and any quadrilateral shape. The shear and distort image effects are especially useful when used together with image overlays to create 3D perspectives. Sample code included for Ruby, Javascript (Node.js), PHP and more.
FLIF is a new lossless image format that promised to be superior to the popular PNG format. This article describes comprehensive benchmark tests that verify that FLIF indeed outperforms PNG, WebP and other lossless formats.
See also FLIF introduction on Hacker News earlier this month:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10317790
Images account for almost 63% of the bytes of the average web page. This article talks about 3 recent image handling mistakes of developers and how to solve them, as well as a review of the top 10 common mistakes that web developers make in handling images of websites.
Last week Google announced their new logo, and promised a drastic size reduction from their previous logo, of X46, from approximately 13.7KB to only 305 bytes. Seems that these promising numbers are misleading. A mix of the SVG and PNG image formats is involved. The actual logo images embedded in Google's web pages are much bigger and have plenty of room for optimization.
Last month I was invited to speak at Daho.am, Munich's developers conference. At this conference I talked about building and scaling a B2D service (Business to Developers). Specifically, how to build and scale such a service for developers in the bootstrapped way with zero external funding, which is the Cloudinary story.
I thought you might find this interesting and would appreciate your feedback :-)
This article explains how to dynamically create responsive images with Cloudinary's Javascript library, which automatically builds image manipulation URLs to match the size available for each image, for simple and automatic integration within responsive design layouts (e.g., Bootstrap responsive layouts).
Sample code included for Javascript, Ruby on Rails, PHP, Node.js and more.
This case study describes how Answers.com manage their millions of images. From handling an incredible volume of image uploads in a fast and secure way, to storing the images and applying all sorts of graphic modifications before delivering them to the end-users in the most optimal and quick way.
This article explains how to control the space around the original image when cropping using automatic face detection. The Zoom image transformation parameter of Cloudinary can be added to dynamic image delivery URLs with on-the-fly cloud-based manipulation. Sample code included for Node.js, PHP, Ruby on Rails, jQuery .Net and other frameworks.
How to upload video clips to the cloud directly from the browser, server code or mobile apps, perform on-the-fly transcoding, manipulation and web optimization using CDN streaming delivery URLs.
This cloud-based video management solution joins Cloudinary's image management service.
Sample SDK integration code included for Ruby on Rails, PHP, jQuery, Node.js, .Net and other frameworks.
Cloudinary's new video management solution covered by The Next Web:
"Cloudinary’s video service provides a technical solution for all aspects of handling videos online, allowing developers to focus on their product rather than having to use resources to build and support in-house video operations."
Rails towards version 5.0, is probably still the best web development framework around. This article explains how image management in Rails is solved using Cloudinary's cloud-based solution. Ruby sample code included for image upload directly from the browser, and for embedding dynamically manipulated images with optimized delivery.
Automatically extract detailed face attributes from any uploaded image, and apply different image transformations accordingly. Create accurate face detection based and eyes detection based thumbnails. Dynamically add image overlays of glasses and masks. Code samples included for Ruby on Rails, PHP, Node.js, .Net and other frameworks.
How-to combine multiple images on-the-fly as overlays, while manipulating each image overlay dynamically to match your graphic design. Sample code included for Rails, PHP, Node, Javascript and other web frameworks.
How to dynamically create SEO friendly, short, and meaningful URLs for your site's images with Root Path URL and Dynamic SEO suffixes. Sample code included for Ruby on Rails, PHP, Javascript, Node.js, .Net and other frameworks.
Semantic image data now available through Cloudinary’s Media Library UI. Details include the image’s respective Exif, IPTC, and XMP metadata as well as color data, that is automatically extracted. The Media Library UI now also automatically indicates face coordinates, where a single face or multiple faces are automatically detected.
This blog post explains how you can use Cloudinary's add-on of ReKognition scene categorization that analyzes scenes within photos and allows you to automatically classify your website’s images into a list of potential categories. Sample code available for Ruby on Rails, PHP, Python, Node.js and Java.
A new JavaScript upload widget that can be added to any website. The widget allows users to interactively upload images and any other files to the cloud directly from their web browsers. The widget supports multiple file selection, drag & drop, webcam capturing, progress bar, thumbnail previews and more. Uploaded images can be manipulated, optimized and delivered by Cloudinary. Sample JavaScript code is included.
This post explains how to programmatically create image thumbnails from Word, Powerpoint and Excel documents, using Cloudinary's image management platform and its new Aspose add-on. Sample code included for PHP, Ruby on Rails, .Net, Node.js, jQuery and other frameworks.
JPEG-XR is a modern JPEG alternative from Microsoft. Learn how to automatically deliver JPEG-XR images to your IE viewers with Cloudinary, improve your website's load time and reduce your bandwidth by 30% on average without sacrificing image quality.
Sample code included for PHP, Node.js, Ruby on Rails, jQuery and other frameworks.
Animated GIF-based videos are spreading like wildfire around the web. Cloudinary can automatically convert these animations to MP4 and WebM video formats to dramatically reduce their file size and bandwidth usage while improving viewer experience. You can also dynamically resize, crop and manipulate these animations in the cloud, to best match your graphic design.
This article details how you can easily and automatically scale your website images to the resolution most appropriate to your viewers mobile devices or screen pixel density. Code samples included for Javascript (jQuery), PHP, Ruby on Rails, Django, Node.js, Java and .Net.
This article explains how you can have user uploaded images automatically moderated by human expert moderators to make sure that only appropriate content is shown to your users. Integration code samples are available for Node.js, PHP, Java, Ruby on Rails and Django.