In a previous blog post, we covered the benefits of low-code development for workflows involving visual media – and highlighted how Cloudinary’s next-gen IDE, MediaFlows, helps unlock these for devs and their companies:
- Faster time-to-market.
- Greater agility and innovation.
- Happier, more productive developers.
So let’s say you’re a dev convinced that low-code has the potential to transform your image and video workflows. How can you get started today?
Developers who start adopting low-code technology for visual media typically find the most immediate value in one of three types of use cases. Here’s an overview of each – along with examples and practical tips for getting started right out of the gate.
- What it is: The logic required to organize, structure, and govern visual media assets. This might include everything from tagging assets to automating approval workflows (e.g., UGC moderation).
- Low-code example: An e-commerce website stores retouched photoshoot images in Dropbox files, where the directory name captures metadata about the product category and season (e.g., FW23/womens/knits/). In order to transfer image files to a DAM where they can be used for site merchandising and marketing, they need to be enriched with descriptive tags. A low-code workflow can automatically transfer files from the Dropbox to the company’s DAM, strip information from the file path, and add these as descriptive tags – so that the digital team can effortlessly access the right assets for each page and placement.
- Our quick-start recommendation: Do a lightweight audit of your media workflows to identify processes that consume manual dev resources or have high error/rework rates. These bottlenecks are prime candidates for low-code automation. Typical examples include approval workflows (e.g., generation of Slack notifications) and maintenance of metadata on visual media assets.
- What it is: Applying programmatic rules to modify the look and feel of images or video (e.g., size, color, visual effects, video duration, etc.).
- Low-code example: A developer is responsible for taking raw photoshoot data, removing the backgrounds (with tools like Cloudinary’s AI-powered add-on), and placing the model and merchandise on a new standard background for image clarity and brand consistency. A low-code technology can automate this entire workflow. Additionally, since no background removal tool is 100% accurate, it can automatically route low-confidence images for manual review – sparing the creative team the task of manually reviewing each and every output.
- Our quick-start recommendation: As illustrated in the background removal example above, the real power of low-code development is in concatenating and automating multiple transformations. Once you get the hang of simple one-off transformations, use low-code logic to create more complex “daisy chains” to automate the journey from raw image or video to final, consumer-ready asset.
- What it is: Harnessing and coordinating processes from one or more services to achieve a single business objective.
- Low-code example: A developer is responsible for creating promotional videos for a musical artist. The developer builds a low-code workflow that takes a library of static images delivered by a generative AI tool, then uses a separate service to stitch and animate these images into a video, and finally delivers it to a destination where it is compressed and optimized for delivery.
- Our quick-start recommendation: Start by prioritizing two types of orchestration workflows:
- Use integrations with a third-party environment (e.g., a CMS, PIM, or cloud storage environment), enabling you to sync images and video between systems.
- Use built-in integrations and open APIs to tap into third-party services to augment media capabilities (e.g., integrating output from an AR/VR vendor).
Low-code development has the potential to transform how we build visual media workflows. But it can be hard to know where to start. That’s why focusing on use cases that drive immediate business value – specifically around media management, transformation, and orchestration – is the perfect foray into building and scaling media-rich applications.
Want to learn more about how the low-code revolution can unlock innovation for you? Get started for free with MediaFlows – and take advantage of out-of-the-box templates and flows covering these use cases and more.
