Size of viewing an image in a collection
When I create a collection, I am able to limit downloads using a particular transformation, however viewers of the collection still get a full size version of the image when they click on the image to view it, which allows them to easily download the full-size original.
The copyright on many of the images in our library is owned by the photographers, so we can't necessarily distribute the originals.
Is it possible to use a transformation for viewing an image in a collection, or otherwise limit the size when viewing?
Best Answer
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Enabling strict transformations by itself shouldn't affect the delivery of existing assets because strict only prevents the creation of new derived assets. It's worth enabling with caution, but you can easily turn it on/off as needed by going to https://console.cloudinary.com/settings/security
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Answers
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Hey @freshyill. Danny from the Support team here.
Collections are really designed for distributing contents in your Media Library to third parties in their full quality, which is why we allow the assets to be displayed without modification. The while the download option can be used to add watermarks, overlays, etc, typically this is used for forcing specific resolutions, orientations, etc.
If you wanted to share assets in a watermarked-only way and prevent access to original assets, I would recommend a combination of using strict delivery with named transformations, and cookie or token-based authentication.
Strict delivery ensures that only transformed versions of your assets can be delivered. These transformations can be made ahead of time using eager transformations, or using a signed delivery URL, or requesting the transformation via an allowed strict referral domain. If you didn't want to create all required transformations ahead of time, you can use named transformations.
Named transformations allow you to pre-define a specific set of transformations that are whitelisted, effectively preventing people from getting an image URL and requesting their own transformations.
Cookie or token-based authentication allows you to share the original versions of assets in a time-limited way, though this does require an account on the Advanced plan or higher. If you're on a free account, you might instead want to make use of private delivery and signed URLs. Both of which you can read about here and here.
I hope this helps. Feel free to drop a reply with any other questions you may have.
All the best!
-Danny
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OK, thanks for the information. This sounds like we'd have to review any current uses of transformations before switching on strict delivery, otherwise existing images may stop working. Is this correct?
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Thanks, I'll check it out!
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No problem :)
Let us know how it goes
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