Image URLs

[Kunal_Gaba_]

What are the pros and cons of using absolute image paths vs the paths relative to the current page node (What image component uses. )

Example -   /content/dam/site/asset/jcr:content/renditions/dam_web.png  (This uses direct DAM URL to render the image)

                            OR

                   /content/site/en_US/test/_jcr_content/par/image.img.png/1472122582094.png (This uses Image servlet to render the image)

If we have a requirement to create an image component to fetch custom renditions then which URL should we choose ? Is there any benefit related to flushing of dispatcher and browser caches with the second URL and that is why AEM image component uses this URL strategy. 

[kautuk_sahni]

Interesting Question.

Let community answer it.

~kautuk

[Ashokkumar_TA]

Think the key difference is with reusing the same asset in other pages / sites.

Images maintained under  /content/dam/  can be reused across multiple pages. Typically these image assets is maintained by separate team. Also only the images under  /content/dam/ show up on the damadmin console for managing. 

Images under the page path are typically local to the page and are not intended to be reused in other pages. 

[Kunal_Gaba_]

Then why out of the box image component uses URLs relative to the current page ? 

[smacdonald2008]

The only way i see that it makes sense to use a servlet to render an image is when you want to dynamically change the URL based on various run-time conditions that can be evaluated by the servlet.