Rendering

Picturepark generates (renders) static (preconfigured, pre-rendered) and dynamic (on-demand rendered) formats. Both are available in the format selection dialogue which opens up when you download or share.

Picturepark rendering is optimized to create formats fast and save rendering resources, reducing rendering times and failures. Picturepark does not always render from the original file, but the configured appropriate source format. You cannot create a video output based on an image thumbnail.

Simplified Rendering Chain; Picturepark converts the original into a smaller preview, which is then converted into even smaller outputs (formats like thumbs).

Previews

Previews are static formats, available for File Types.

The standard windows server fonts are installed on our rendering server and will be applied and rendered to document previews. Any other fonts will be substituted.
You see a file format icon when Picturepark couldn’t render a preview e.g. Indd for Indesign files.
The original file is also available - accessing (download) the Original File can be restricted with Content Permissions.

You cannot restrict Access/Download of previews, but it is possible that you add a watermark to Preview which is then also applied to other Formats and Thumbnails derived from the Preview. Check for formats and thumbnails if their rendering source is the Preview format to ensure that the Watermark is applied everywhere.

Picturepark generates the following previews for supported file formats.

Preview name	Size (max)	Color profile	File Format	Quality	Notes
Preview	1600x1600	SRGB	.jpg	95	DPI original No clipping path Can't restrict Access/Download
Thumbnail Large	320x320	Original	.jpg	95
Thumbnail Medium	200x220	Original	.jpg	95
Thumbnail Small	90x120	Original	.jpg	95
Video Keyframes (these are Small thumbnails used in UI for Video Thumb-Slider in player)	160x160 (max 50 sprites)	RGB	.jpg	80
Pdf (These PDFs are used for display in the document viewer (even though a pdf would have an original it may be too large to make a good document viewer pdf i.e. to display on mobile so we render a format for this.)	NA		.pdf	90
Video Small	360x480		.mp4
Video Large	1280x720		.mp4
Audio Small	NA		.mp3

Dynamic Formats

Dynamic Formats can be defined for images only and are rendered on demand for the selected Content Item in Picturepark and not saved to the storage but only to a cache for the configured retention time. Dynamic formats may be Hero Images, Social Media Images, or Campaign Specials.

The benefits of dynamic rendering

Those are customizable by the customer during operation (setup via API)
Dynamic formats are cached (retention time configuration), so the downloader does not have to wait for frequently accessed content.
Picturepark does not store them on storage, saving money for the monthly storage subscription price.

The drawback of dynamic rendering

The download of multiple dynamic formats of the same Content Item is possible.
Rendering on request (lazy) may take some time until Picturepark generates the output. Picturepark will notify you when you can access the ready-to-download file.
You can continue working in Picturepark while waiting for your download to be ready.
Only available to produce images (rasterized files).
Costs performance of rendering microservice.

Static Formats

Static formats are created on customer creation, predefined, and rendered for every Content Item in Picturepark, saved to the storage. The benefits of static formats

No waiting times for downloading them. Picturepark creates the format after import and every user can then directly download it.
You can have static formats created for all file types (based on rendering support).

The drawback of static formats

Costs storage, as all formats are rendered and saved on the storage.

Rendering Chain

Example of a Rendering Chain for static formats, where Pictureprak, e.g., creates the thumbnails of an image based on the preview format. The main benefit is that, e.g., watermarks of the Preview are automatically available on all thumbnails, except if you remove the watermark with a crop action.

Choose Source Format for Rendering

Additional source considerations for choosing the source format:

The source must have sufficient quality to produce the desired format, e.g., you should not create a high-res print format from a small thumbnail.
To save resources, the source should match the output, so be of similar but a bit larger size and resolution. An original file may be huge, and producing a small thumbnail would waste rendering resources and take time.
For dynamic formats, a setting "view for all" is available. This setting will enable you to access the dynamic format without giving access to the source. Therefore dynamic outputs rendered based on the source Original do not require "AccessOriginal permission."
The source can be temporary and not available for download or visible in Picturepark.