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How can I deliver and transform existing web images using Cloudinary?

Orly Bogler
Updated

In order to deliver and transform existing web images via Cloudinary, you can specify a remote HTTP URL as the 'file' parameter of our upload API. Cloudinary will automatically download the image from this remote URL and you will be able to transform it as you wish.

In addition, we support adding Cloudinary's fetch URL as a prefix to any URL for dynamically transforming remote images and delivering through a CDN, see our blog post for more details: http://cloudinary.com/blog/delivering_all_your_websites_images_through_a_cdn

Here's a sample fetch URL that creates a 150x150 crop focused on Benedict’s face ('g_face') and with rounded corners of 20 pixels ('r_20') and generates the following image:

https://res.cloudinary.com/demo/image/fetch/w_150,h_150,r_20,c_thumb,g_face/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Benedict_Cumberbatch_2011.png

 

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Comments

7 comments

Date Votes
  • Tim Coulter

    Hi Cloudinary,

    I'm mainly interested in your service for its on-the-fly resizing through the fetch method, but due to the nature of the app I'm creating, for security reasons, I'd be passing many temporary URLs through Cloudinary. I noticed that for each fetch -- even a fetch with the same image but a different query string -- a new image is stored in my Media Library and counted against my total storage count. I want images added to my library through fetch to expire after a certain period of time. Is this possible?

    Thanks!

    Tim 

    0
  • Itay Taragano

    Hi Tim,

    Cloudinary currently doesn't support automatic timely purging of fetched resources.

    Until this feature is made available, you can implement timely deletions yourself using Cloudinary's Admin APIs.

    Itay

    0
  • Jesse Bryant

    5 years on, can someone confirm if this is now possible?

     

    Jesse.

    0
  • Yakir Perlin

    Hi Jesse, 

    For fetched images, we have this TTL options:

     

    • Once
      • (Default) Re-fetch once.
    • Refresh
      • Checks if the resource changed at the origin if so, the resource is updated on your Cloudinary account.
    • Delete
      • Deletes the resource even if it hasn't been updated at the origin, and is re-fetched when it is requested again.

    The fetch TTL can be changed and is currently at 7 days by default.

    Please let me know if this is something that could be helpful for you?

    Cheers,

    Yakir

    0
  • Jesse Bryant

    Very helpful - thank you :)

    1
  • Morten Steensgaard

    How do I include the TLL in an URL like this?

    https://res.cloudinary.com/demo/image/fetch/w_150,h_150,r_20,c_thumb,g_face/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Benedict_Cumberbatch_2011.png

    As an example, I want to set TTL=Once

    Thank you 

    0
  • Francis Tagbo

    Hi Morten,

     

    The TTL is an option that can be set in your account in the backend, by default it is set to Once.

    You can create a support ticket so we can check your account.

     

    Regards,

    Francis

    0

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