What are assets?
In Acoustic Content, every file you upload — every image, video, pdf, or any other type of file — is stored as an asset in your content collection. You can upload assets directly to your collection, or by uploading assets to elements when you’re composing content.
When you upload an asset, the asset is analyzed by Watson™ and it suggests tags that best describe your asset. You can accept or delete these tags, plus add your own tags. When you’re uploading multiple assets, you can review any current asset uploads by clicking Uploading assets from your My items view.
Your hub manager
Your hub manager, in collaboration with your site designer and hub developer, determines which elements are required for each content type they create. These element types are used with assets:
- File fields
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By default, any file type can be added to a file field, but your hub manager can restrict a file field to specific file types.
- Image fields
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By default, any valid image type can be added to an image field including jpg, jpeg, png, gif, and svg. Your hub manager can restrict an image element to specific image file types.
- Video fields
- By default, any valid video type can be added to a video field including mp4 and mov files. Your hub manager can restrict a video element to specific video file types.
Your content composers
When composers create content, they use the elements selected by their hub manager to assign assets to a content item. To do this, they either select assets from your hub's asset collection, or upload their own assets. Any assets uploaded by a composer are also added to your hub's asset collection.
When a composer uploads an image to an image element, they can configure the element to either accept all updates from the original asset or to retain the original version of the image. In most cases, composers don't need to change the default value of "Accept all updates". By maintaining images in the asset collection rather than in individual content items, you only need to go to one place to update an image everywhere it's used. Composers only choose not to accept updates from the original asset if a particular piece of content needs an image to remain unchanged for some reason. Only image elements can be updated in this way.
Preview and buy assets from Shutterstock's colossal asset catalog
Your subscription to Acoustic Content includes access to watermarked previews of Shutterstock's archive of over 200 million creative assets, including images, videos, and music. You can access and preview these assets from the asset palette as you create content items. This allows you to send out content and pages for review using preview versions of Shutterstock assets without having to purchase a license just in case a reviewer doesn’t like one of your chosen assets.
If you have an account with Shutterstock, you can then purchase licenses for Shutterstock assets from the palette as well, so make sure you make a note of the search filters you used to first find the image. Or, better still, add an asset to your clipboard when selecting Shutterstock preview assets.
If you don't have an account with Shutterstock, or you don't want to use Shutterstock images, you can configure your palette to hide Shutterstock assets. Administrators can also configure your hub to hide Shutterstock assets from all users.
Enhance your images using the Shutterstock editor
Your subscription to Acoustic Content also includes access to the Shutterstock editor in the asset form. This cool editor allows you to enhance both your original images and any images you've downloaded from Shutterstock. You can add text, change alignment, apply filters and more. However, remember to make a copy of your asset before you make any changes just in case you want to revert to your original image.
Your developers
Developers use APIs to retrieve these assets and display them in different media (desktops, tablets, and smartphones) and channels (websites, emails, and social media).