Django SDK

Overview

Cloudinary's Django SDK provides simple, yet comprehensive image and video upload, transformation, optimization, and delivery capabilities that you can implement using code that integrates seamlessly with your existing Django application.

This guide relates to the latest released version of the Cloudinary Django library.

For details on all new features and fixes from previous versions, see the CHANGELOG.

On this page:

Quick example: Transformations

Take a look at the following transformation code and the image it delivers:

Python
Python:
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CloudinaryImage("front_face.png").image(secure=True, transformation=[
  {'width': 150, 'height': 150, 'gravity': "face", 'crop': "thumb"},
  {'radius': 20},
  {'effect': "sepia"},
  {'overlay': "cloudinary_icon", 'gravity': "south_east", 'x': 5, 'y': 5, 'width': 50, 'opacity': 60, 'effect': "brightness:200"},
  {'angle': 10}
  ])
sample transformation

This relatively simple code performs all of the following on the original front_face.jpg image before delivering it:

  • Crop to a 150x150 thumbnail using face-detection gravity to automatically determine the location for the crop
  • Round the corners with a 20 pixel radius
  • Apply a sepia effect
  • Overlay the Cloudinary logo on the southeast corner of the image (with a slight offset). The logo is scaled down to a 50 pixel width, with increased brightness and partial transparency (opacity = 60%)
  • Rotate the resulting image (including the overlay) by 10 degrees
  • Convert and deliver the image in PNG format (the originally uploaded image was a JPG)

And here's the URL that would be included in the image tag that's automatically generated from the above code:

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https://res.cloudinary.com/demo/image/upload/c_thumb,g_face,h_150,w_150/r_20/e_sepia/l_cloudinary_icon,g_south_east,x_5,y_5,w_50,o_60,e_brightness:200/a_10/front_face.png

Quick example: File upload

The following Django code uploads the dog.mp4 video to the specified account sub-folder using the public_id, my_dog. The video will overwrite the my_dog video if it already exists. When the video upload is complete, the specified notification URL will receive details about the uploaded media asset.

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cloudinary.uploader.upload("dog.mp4", 
  folder = "my_folder/my_sub_folder/", 
  public_id = "my_dog",
  overwrite = true, 
  notification_url = "https://mysite.example.com/notify_endpoint", 
  resource_type = "video")

Django Library features

  • Build URLs for transformation & manipulation
  • Django form and model integration classes
  • Django template tags for embedding and transforming resources
  • API wrappers: file upload, administration, sprite generation and more
  • Server-side file upload + direct unsigned file upload from the browser using the jQuery plugin

Installation

Cloudinary's Django integration library is available as open-source Python code.

  1. Install Cloudinary's module using either easy_install or pip package management tools:

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    pip install cloudinary

  2. Add cloudinary to the list of INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py.

  3. Include Cloudinary's Python classes in your code:

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    import cloudinary
import cloudinary.uploader
import cloudinary.api

  4. Initalize Cloudinary tags in your Django templates:

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    {% load cloudinary %}

Configuration

To use the Cloudinary Django library, you have to configure at least your cloud_name. Your api_key and api_secret are also needed for secure API calls to Cloudinary (e.g., image and video uploads). You can find your account-specific configuration credentials in the Dashboard page of the account console.

Setting the configuration parameters can be done either programmatically in each call to a Cloudinary method or you can set them globally using either an environment variable or the config method.

In addition to the required configuration parameters, you can define a number of optional configuration parameters if relevant.

Here's an example of setting configuration parameters globally in your Django application:

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cloudinary.config( 
  cloud_name = "sample", 
  api_key = "874837483274837", 
  api_secret = "a676b67565c6767a6767d6767f676fe1" 
)

Django capitalization and data type guidelines

When using the Django SDK, keep these guidelines in mind:

  • Parameter names: snake_case. For example: public_id
  • Classes: PascalCase. For example: CloudinaryField
  • Methods: snake_case. For example: add_tag
  • Pass parameter data as: dict or named arguments

Sample projects

For additional useful code samples and learn how to integrate Cloudinary with your Django applications, take a look at our Sample Projects.

  • Basic python sample: Uploading local and remote images to Cloudinary and generating various transformation URLs.
  • Django Photo Album: A fully working web application that allows you to upload photos, maintain a database with references, list images with their metadata, and display them using various cloud-based transformations. Image uploading is performed both from the server side and directly from the browser using a jQuery plugin.

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