Smart Imaging technology applies Adobe Sensei AI capabilities and works with existing “image presets” to enhance image delivery performance by automatically optimizing image format, size, and quality based on client browser capabilities.
This feature requires that you use the out-of-the-box CDN that is bundled with Adobe Experience Manager Dynamic Media. Any other custom CDN is not supported with this feature.
Smart Imaging also benefits from the added performance boost of being fully integrated with Adobe’s best-in-class premium CDN service. This service finds the optimal internet route between servers, networks, and peering points. It finds a route that has the lowest latency and lowest packet loss rate instead of using the default route on the Internet.
The following image asset examples depict the added Smart Imaging optimization:
Image (URL) |
Thumbnail | Size (JPEG) |
Size (WebP) (with Smart Imaging) |
% reduction |
---|---|---|---|---|
Image 1 | ![]() |
73.75 KB | 45.92 KB | 38% |
Image 2 | ![]() |
191 KB | 70.66 KB | 63% |
Image 3 | ![]() |
96.64 KB | 39.44 KB | 59% |
Image 4 | ![]() |
315.80 KB | 178.19 KB | 44% |
Average = 51% |
Similar to the above, Adobe also ran a test with 7009 URLs from live customer sites. They were able to achieve an average of 38% further file size optimization for JPEG and 31% further file size optimization for PNG with WebP format, owing to the capability of Smart Imaging.
Because images constitute most of a page’s load time, the performance improvement can have a profound impact on a Business such as higher conversion, time spent on site, and lower site bounce rate.
Enhancements in latest version of Smart Imaging:
No. Smart Imaging is included with your existing license of either Dynamic Media Classic or Adobe Experience Manager - Dynamic Media (On-prem, AMS, and AEM as a Cloud Service).
Smart Imaging is not available to Dynamic Media – Hybrid customers.
When an image is requested by a consumer, Smart Imaging checks the user characteristics and convert to the appropriate image format based on the browser in use. These format conversions are done in a manner that does not degrade visual fidelity. Smart imaging automatically converts images to different formats based on browser capability in the following manner.
Automatically convert to WebP for the following browsers:
Legacy browser support for the following:
Browser | Browser/OS version | Format |
---|---|---|
Safari | iOS 14.0 or earlier | JPEG2000 |
Edge | 18 or earlier | JPEGXR |
Internet Explorer | 9+ | JPEGXR |
For browsers that do not support these formats, the originally requested image format is served.
If the original image size is smaller than what Smart Imaging produces, then the original image is served.
The following image formats are supported for Smart Imaging:
Smart Imaging works with your existing “image presets” and observes all of your image settings except for quality (qlt) and format (fmt) if the requested file format is JPEG or PNG. For format conversion, Smart Imaging maintains full visual fidelity as defined by your image preset settings, but at a smaller file size. If original image size is smaller than what Smart Imaging produces, then the original image is served.
Smart Imaging works seamlessly with your existing image URLs and image presets if you configure Smart Imaging on your existing custom domain. In addition, Smart Imaging does not require you to add any code on your website to detect a user’s browser. It is all handled automatically.
In case you must configure a new custom domain to use Smart Imaging, the URLs must be updated to reflect this custom domain.
To understand pre-requisites for Smart Imaging, see Am I eligible to use Smart Imaging?.
Smart Imaging works with images delivered over HTTP or HTTPS. In addition, it also works over HTTP/2.
To use Smart Imaging, your company’s Dynamic Media Classic or Dynamic Media on AEM account must meet the following requirements:
images.company.com
or mycompany.scene7.com
), not a generic domain (for example, s7d1.scene7.com
, s7d2.scene7.com
, or s7d13.scene7.com
).To find your domains, open the Dynamic Media Classic desktop application, then sign in to your company account or accounts.
Tap Setup > Application Setup > General Settings. Look for the field labeled Published Server Name. If you are currently using a generic domain, you can request moving over to your own custom domain as part of this transition when you submit a technical support ticket.
Your first custom domain is no additional cost with a Dynamic Media license.
You initiate the request to use smart imaging; it is not automatically enabled.
Provide the following information in your support case:
Primary contact name, email, phone.
All domains to be enabled for smart imaging (that is, images.company.com
or mycompany.scene7.com
).
To find your domains, open the Dynamic Media Classic desktop application, then sign in to your company account or accounts.
Click Setup > Application Setup > General Settings.
Look for the field labeled Published Server Name.
Verify that you are using the CDN through Adobe and not managed with a direct relationship.
Verify you are using a dedicated domain such as images.company.com
or mycompany.scene7.com
, and not a generic domain, such as s7d1.scene7.com
, s7d2.scene7.com
, s7d13.scene7.com
.
To find your domains, open the Dynamic Media Classic desktop application, then sign in to your company account or accounts.
Click Setup > Application Setup > General Settings.
Look for the field labeled Published Server Name. If you are currently using a generic Dynamic Media Classic domain, you can request moving over to your own custom domain as part of this transition.
Indicate if it must work over HTTP/2.
Adobe Customer Care adds you to the Smart Imaging customer Wait List based on the order in which requests were submitted.
When Adobe is ready to handle your request, support contacts you to coordinate and set a target date.
Optional: You can optionally test smart imaging in Staging before Adobe pushes the new feature to production.
You are notified after completion by support.
To maximize the performance improvements of Smart Imaging, Adobe recommends setting the Time To Live (TTL) to 24 hours or longer. The TTL defines how long assets are cached by the CDN. To change this setting:
Requests are processed in the order in which they are received by Customer Care, according to the Wait List.
There can be a long lead time because enabling Smart Imaging involves Adobe clearing the cache. Therefore, only a few customer transitions can be handled at any given time.
There is no risk to a customer web page. However, the transition to Smart Imaging clears out your cache at the CDN because it involves moving to a new configuration of Dynamic Media Classic or Dynamic Media on Experience Manager.
During the initial transition, the non-cached images directly hit Adobe’s origin servers until the cache is rebuilt again. As a result, Adobe plans to handle a few customer transitions at a time so that acceptable performance is maintained when pulling requests from the origin. For most customers, the cache is fully built up again at the CDN within ~1 - 2 days.
After your account is configured with smart imaging, load a Dynamic Media Classic or Adobe Experience Manager - Dynamic Media image URL on the browser.
Open the Chrome developer pane by clicking View > Developer > Developer Tools in the browser. Or, choose any browser developer tool of your choice.
Ensure that cache is disabled when developer tools are open.
Observe the Content Type is transformed to the appropriate format. The following screenshot shows a PNG image being converted dynamically to WebP on Chrome.
Repeat this test on different browsers and user conditions.
Not all images are converted. Smart Imaging decides if the conversion can improve performance. Sometimes, where there is no expected performance gain or the format is not JPEG or PNG, the image is not converted.
Yes. You can turn off Smart Imaging by adding the modifier bfc=off
to the URL.
Currently, you can optionally enable or disable Smart Imaging. No other tuning is available.
There is no such provisioning ability in the current Smart Imaging.
Smart Imaging determines if the conversion is beneficial or not. It returns the new image only if the conversion results in a smaller file size with comparable quality.