Policies contain the optimization and transformation configuration settings to be applied to your images or videos. A image policy set can contain only image policies, and a video policy set can contain only video policies.

A default policy is automatically generated when a new policy set is created. You can create as many policy sets and policies as you need on a single contract.

Policies are created in one of two ways:

• By setting Apply Existing Policy Set to No in the Image and Video Manager behavior that you add to your Image and Video Manager rule. This automatically creates a new policy set containing a default policy when the rule is saved.

• By logging into ​Akamai Control Center​, navigating to ☰ > CDN > Image and Video Manager, and using the Policy Manager tools.

All policies must be configured using the Image and Video Manager Policy Editor.

An IVM user's ability to view or edit a policy on staging or production is determined by the granular permissions that have been set.

Image and video policies

Image and video optimization settings must be configured in separate image and video policies.

Image policy

An image policy contains:

• Image optimization settings such as derivative image quality, derivative image widths (breakpoints), and the quality value override for slow connections.

• Image transformations and conditions such as Rotate, Resize, Crop, Watermark, If Dimension, If Orientation, and so on. If Dimension and If Orientation allow you to conditionalize the application of transformations based on image dimension and orientation.

Video policy

A video policy contains:

• Video optimization settings such as derivative video quality and resolution.

• an optional setting to add a placeholder video which will play while the requested video loads.

Default versus custom policy

Depending on the complexity of your configuration, you may decide to create additional, custom policies. Default policies and custom policies are edited in the same way.

Default policy

A default policy is automatically created when a new policy set is created in Policy Manager. A new policy set and default policy is also created when you create a new Image and Video Manager rule if Apply Existing Policy Set is toggled to No in the Image and Video Manager (Images) or (Videos) behavior.

The default policy contains the default settings that determine how Image and Video Manager generates derivatives for the policy set. You can configure the default policy to change optimization and transformation settings.

The default policy is automatically applied if both of the following are true:

• The request matches a Property Manager rule that contains an enabled Image and Video Manager behavior.

• The request does not include a query string parameter indicating another specific and valid custom policy name.

Custom policy

You can create and configure a custom policy to apply different quality settings and artistic transformations. Once configured, use Image and Video Manager parameters to associate the correct custom policy with each request. For more information about applying custom policies, see Apply your policies. You may also want to look at some of the use cases and examples.

Create a policy

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Cache-Control header behavior

The Image and Video Manager modifies the cache-control header of all converted images to private by default. This setting restricts caching to the user's local browser only. If you want to enable broader caching (that is, by CDNs or shared caches), you must include a downstream cacheability rule in your property configuration (in Property Manager) that applies to the same images or videos managed by Image and Video Manager.

1. In ​Akamai Control Center​, go to ☰ > CDN > Image and Video Manager.

   Image and Video Manager opens to the Policy Manager page.

2. Select the correct Contract from the list.

3. Click +Create and select Policy from the list that appears.

4. To create your new policy:

   • Select the policy set to which you wish to add the new policy
   • Give your new policy a name, for example, "Rotate"
   • Click Create

5. The Policy Editor appears.

   • If you are editing a image policy, configure image optimization settings and add image transformations and conditions.
   • if you are creating a video policy, configure video optimization settings and add a placeholder video.

6. Once you are finished configuring your settings, click Save and Test on Staging.

Edit a policy

1. In ​Akamai Control Center​, go to ☰ > CDN > Image and Video Manager.

   Image and Video Manager opens to the Policy Manager page.

2. Select the correct Contract from the list.

3. Expand the policy set containing the default policy you want to edit.

4. Open the Actions menu for the default policy and select View/Edit policy on staging.

   The Image Policy Editor appears.

5. Change your policy configuration settings as desired.

6. Click Save and Test on Staging.

Image Metadata Preservation

As part of the image processing and with the focus on providing the highest quality image with the smallest size, Image and Video Manager was stripping image metadata during processing. With the new feature, you can now decide which metadata fields you want to preserve. By preserving this metadata, you can ensure the utility, authenticity and integrity of digital assets. This feature is implemented for the following formats: JPEG, WebP, PNG.

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Why use the XMP metadata preservation feature

To enhance your control over image and video metadata, you can use the XMP metadata preservation feature if you wish to retain specific metadata for your needs.

While it is generally best practice for many users to strip all metadata for privacy or other reasons, you may want to use this feature in case some jurisdictions have legal requirements for preserving certain IPTC metadata.

How to remove metadata

By default, all Image Metadata is removed during the creation of derivative images. To carry all XMP metadata fields over from the pristine to derivative images, set Preserve XMP to true. To remove certain IPTC fields so that they are not copied to the derivative, add elements to be filtered to the IPTC Filter.

To select which metadata to remove from your images, configure the XMP Preserve Image Metadata settings as follows.

1. Create or Edit an IVM policy.
2. In the Policy settings section of the policy, configure Preserve XMP:
   • Set to true to preserve all metadata.
   • Set to false to remove specific metadata defined in the IPTC Filter.
3. In the IPTC Filter, select the IPTC metadata elements you want to remove from the output. Refer to the IPTC metadata elements table for details.
4. Save the policy.

IPTC metadata elements

Below is a list of the IPTC metadata elements that you can strip. For more information about these elements, please visit IPTC website.