Overview

Thanks to PixelFiddler you can optimize your images, improve your page speed, and make it easy to create responsive designs.

By adding parameters to your image URLs, you can enhance, resize, compress images and change format for better performance.

This section of the documentation shows you the overview of basics that you should understand before moving forward.

Media Source Options

PixelFiddler offers two flexible ways to store and manage your media:

Hosted Media Source - Use our managed storage solution where we handle all the infrastructure for you. Perfect for instant setup and seamless integration.
External Storage Integration - Connect your existing storage providers including Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage, FTP servers, or HTTP endpoints. Maintain complete control over your infrastructure.

Both options support the same full range of image transformation features. Both options support the same full range of image transformation features, so you can optimize and deliver your media regardless of where it’s stored.

Parameter Aliases

Choose between full and short names for transformations.

You can use short aliases instead of typing out full parameter names. Instead of width, just use w. Instead of height, use h. Much quicker to type!

Here’s how it works:

Full parameter names:

?width=300&height=200&quality=80

Short aliases (same result):

?w=300&h=200&q=80

Common shortcuts:

w instead of width
h instead of height
q instead of quality
f instead of format
bg instead of background

Both ways work exactly the same - use whatever feels easier for you!

See all transformations and aliases

Colors

Some parameters, such as background and text.color, accept colors as values. Colors can be expressed as:

Hexadecimal values without the # prefix: ffffff for white, 000000 for black
6-digit full format: ff0000 for red, 00ff00 for green

Security

PixelFiddler supports multiple security modes for accessing media:

TOKEN: Requires JWT authentication for all requests
SIGNATURE_OR_TOKEN: Accepts either URL signatures or JWT tokens
UNSECURED: No authentication required (use with caution)

URL signatures use ECDSA (SHA256withECDSA) and require both signature and ts (timestamp) query parameters.

Limits

Canvas size: The maximum supported canvas size is 4096px by 4096px. If your image is larger than the limit, it will be resized to fit within the limit before any other operations occur.
Input file size: For optimal performance, we recommend keeping input files under 50 MB. Files that are too large may receive a timeout error.
Parameter limits: Most numeric parameters have specific ranges (e.g., quality: 1-100, blur: 0-100).