Vulcan and Reaper are our in-app photo cropping services. Vulcan saves crops of any photo you upload based on your brand’s aspect ratios, so you don’t need to touch the original file for it to be reader-ready. The Reaper will modify your crops, if you want to change them. The Reaper selects crops based on top-center logic. It never cuts the original image, but rather stores renditions associated with that original. You will see the selected crops on each thumbnail.
Aside from on-demand cropping, one of Vulcan's perks is that it accepts files up to 30mb. So upload your largest originals, and don't worry about saving them for web.
Please note that images should be uploaded in RGB colorspace—not CMYK. Uploading images with CMYK will cause slight color changes to the image on your site.
To add a photo to Copilot:
Select Photo from the Create dropdown.
Drag your images into the Image box, or browse your desktop for them. Once populated, they will appear below the box.
Click on a photo to open up the photo detail page and add the following optional information
Change the Title. The title is an internal field and should be specific and something that you will be able to search for.
Add Alt Text. This field is important to complete as it helps to ensure our compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. It should be descriptive of the image, as it will be read by screen readers for persons with disabilities.
Add a Global Caption. This caption will live with the photo whereever it is pulled in and can be quickly populated into a caption field. You will be able to override this caption later if you want to.
Add a Contributor. Start typing the name of the photographer to populate one who has already been added to Copilot as a contributor.
Add a Credit. The Credit field can be auto-generated by the Contributor fields by clicking the magic wand to the left of the field, or it can be edited manually.
Add Notes. This is an internal field that you can use as needed.
Add Tags. Start typing and select from tags that populate.
Adjust Crops: Ensure that each crop looks the way you want by clicking and dragging until the thumbnail looks the way you want.
When you're done modifying one aspect ratio, just move to the next!
What if the image shouldn’t be cropped?
If an image can’t be cropped due to rights or any other reason, select Do Not Crop. This will disable all crops and keep the image in its aspect ratio.
How does this work on the website?
Vulcan creates renditions on demand, so your website will call on Vulcan for one of the crops you’ve created with whatever height and width is best, depending on the specified template and responsive breakpoint (e.g. desktop, tablet or phone).