Manage assets using Adobe Asset Link

Organizations can store digital assets across multiple Experience Manager deployments (including Experience Manager Assets as a Cloud Service, Experience Manager Assets Essentials, or in non-cloud deployments). For example, a heterogenous storage infrastructure can compel an organization to store its assets across different deployments. Each distinct deployment is referred to as an Experience Manager environment within Adobe Asset Link.

An organization that has numerous digital assets can also segregate assets by size or MIME type and store them in different environments for efficient handling.

If your organization stores assets across distributed Experience Manager environments, use the Adobe Asset Link panel to access the environment where your assets reside.

When you launch Adobe Asset Link, you are automatically connected to the Experience Manager environment that you are entitled to access. If you are entitled to multiple environments, Adobe Asset Link lists all your entitled environments in the Manage environments view.

Depending upon where your assets are stored, you can switch between environments. You can modify the properties of the active environment. You can also add more environments or remove an Experience Manager environment from Adobe Asset Link.

Open the Manage environments view

To display the Manage environments view, select Manage environments from the Adobe Asset Link panel menu.

The Manage environments view lists Experience Manager environments added to Adobe Asset Link along with an indication of whether you are authorized to access them. A check mark appears against the environment you are currently accessing.

Switch Environment

To switch to a different Experience Manager environment, open the context menu of the target environment and select Switch Environment.

Click Switch to confirm. A check mark appears against the new environment indicating that it is now the active environment.

Modify environment

You can modify the name and URL of any Experience Manager environment that is added to Adobe Asset Link. Open the context menu of the target environment, and select Modify.

Edit the name and URL for the environment and click Save.

The change is reflected in the Manage environments view.

Add an environment

You can add an environment that your administrator configures for you in the Adobe Asset Link settings file when installing the Adobe Asset Link panel. 

To add a new environment, click + in the Manage environments view.

In the Add Environment dialog, specify a name and the URL of the Experience Manager environment. Then, click Save.

The new environment is listed in the Manage environments view.

Remove environment

You can remove an Experience Manager environment that you no longer require. Open the context menu of the environment you want to delete, and select Remove.

In the dialog, click Remove to confirm. The environment is removed from the Manage environments view.

Once you open the Asset Link panel, it displays all files and folders that you have permission to read. You can search and browse digital assets stored in Experience Manager Assets.

• To search for assets, folders, or collections, type a keyword in the search field and press Enter. By default, the scope of the search is set to All, which means it is a global search. All relevant assets, folders, and collections within Experience Manager Assets are displayed, not just the entities in your current location.
• For faster and more targeted results, you can search directly within a folder or collection. First, navigate to the lowest folder or collection that contains the artifact you’re looking for. Then, change the option in the drop-down list to the left of the search field to In Folder or In Collection. Depending on your location, the options in the drop-down list change dynamically.

• To close the search results, click  in the search field, which brings you back to the location where you were before the search. You can also delete the text manually, and then press Enter.
• To navigate back up the higher sections of the content hierarchy, use the breadcrumb next to Inside. If you are in the Asset Link panel, you can focus on the drop-down using the keyboard shortcut Shift + B, and then navigate using arrow keys. To select a location, press Enter.

Similar to proprietary assets, Adobe Stock images that reside in Experience Manager Assets, whether licensed or not, are displayed while searching and browsing. Adobe Stock images appear in the same folder location that they reside in along with any relevant proprietary assets.

Unlicensed Adobe Stock images that are displayed in the panel retain an official Adobe Stock watermark, licensed Adobe Stock images do not. All Adobe Stock images include a reference to Adobe Stock in the file's name, and an Adobe Stock icon indicated with "St."

Find Similar

Adobe Asset Link also allows you to use an asset to search visually similar results within Experience Manager Assets. Powered by machine-learning with Adobe Sensei, the visual search displays results with aesthetic characteristics related to your target image.

To find images that are similar to an asset, open the context menu of the asset and choose Find Similar. The Search field then evolves into a Similar field with the asset’s thumbnail and its title/name. And, similar assets appear in the panel results.

To close the results, click  in the Similar field.

You can quickly and easily access Experience Manager Assets Collections from within the Asset Link panel. The panel displays collections—Static Collections and Smart Collections—as per the permissions assigned to you. To access collections, do the following:

The Asset Link panel allows you to add new assets to Experience Manager Assets from within your creative app. You can create assets using Creative Cloud apps that you are familiar with—Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign—and upload them to Experience Manager Assets.

To upload an asset to Experience Manager Assets, open the asset in your creative app and do the following:

To see the new asset in the folder, click the Refresh, or navigate away from that folder location and return.

You can sort assets in the Asset Link panel by relevance, alphabetically, by size, and by last modified. To sort assets, click the Sort drop-down list, and select an option. By default, Adobe Asset Link sorts assets alphabetically. However, when you search for assets, Adobe Asset Link sorts the search results by relevance.

You can also filter assets in the Asset Link panel by file type, and by last modified. To filter assets, click the filters icon, select an option, and click Apply.

You can also run a search and filter the assets that are displayed as a result.

When you apply filters, a blue dot displays next to the filters icon.

The filters stay applied as you browse through the folders and collections, until you clear the filters manually. To clear the filters, click the filters icon and the click Clear All. To confirm, click Apply.

Adobe Asset link provides several ways you can use an asset in your creations.

• To incorporate an asset on the document you are currently working on, drag the asset to the artboard. This action embeds the asset in the document.
• Open the context menu for the asset, and choose Place.
• Select an InDesign frame and then drag or place the asset using the context menu. It embeds the asset in the document.
  
• Download a copy of the asset. Open the asset's context menu, and choose Download. The file is downloaded to your default download folder.

Using the Place Linked option

When working with InDesign documents, you can directly link to assets within Experience Manager Assets using the Place Linked option in the context menu. If the original asset is modified in Experience Manager Assets, refresh the link to ensure that your InDesign document includes the latest version of the asset. To directly embed assets in your InDesign document, use the Place Copy option.

Using the Place Linked (with options)

When working with InDesign (version 18.4 and later) documents, you can also directly link to assets within Experience Manager Assets using the Place Linked with Options menu. This option provides support for different file formats, such as PDF, AI, PSD, PNG. Based on the file format imported, the corresponding Import Options panel is displayed.

Learn how to Copy and Insert different file formats.

Using the Place Copy option

Embedding an asset places a copy of the asset into your InDesign layout after downloading the binaries to your local system. Adobe Asset Link does not maintain any link between the embedded copy and the original asset. If the original asset is modified in Experience Manager Assets, delete the embedded asset from the InDesign file, and re-embed the asset from Experience Manager Assets. 

If you reference an asset, Adobe Asset Link maintains a link to the original asset in Experience Manager Assets. You can ascertain whether the original asset has changed in Experience Manager Assets by reviewing the Status column in the Links panel in InDesign (Window > Links). Here is a description of the various kinds of status pertaining to referenced assets and the action required.

If the Experience Manager server is configured to generate FPOs, low-resolution renditions are placed in your InDesign document when you use the Place Linked option to reference assets. 

FPO renditions are lightweight substitutes of the original assets. They have the same aspect ratio, but are of smaller size compared to the original images. Currently, InDesign supports importing FPO renditions for the following image types only:

• JPEG
• GIF
• PNG
• TIFF
• PSD
• BMP.

If an FPO rendition is not available for a specific asset in Experience Manager Assets, the original high-resolution asset is referenced instead. For FPO images, the status FPO is displayed in the InDesign Links panel. 

To replace the FPO image with the original image in Experience Manager Assets, choose Download Original from the pop-up menu. 

After the original image is downloaded, choose Replace FPO With Original, or simply double-click the FPO icon.

If you want to replace multiple FPO images with respective original images, choose the Download all Originals option. After the original images are downloaded, choose Replace all FPOs With Originals. 

Importing high-resolution images (300 dpi) (using both the Place Copy or Place Linked options) into your InDesign layout may cause the app to appear unresponsive. It is because, each file must be downloaded locally. If the Experience Manager server is behind a slow network, you might have to wait for a long time before you can resume work.

If FPOs are available, you can reference multiple FPO images in Experience Manager Assets simultaneously, and work more efficiently on your layout design in phases. Once the design is finalized, you can download the original high-resolution assets to replace the placeholder assets. 

You can drop the FPOs anywhere in the InDesign page from where you reference the asset.

If you reference from within a frame, the FPO is placed inside the frame.

If you create a package for an InDesign 2020 document with broken links, the Links and Images panel displays instead of the Adobe Asset Link panel (in Relink mode). When you attempt to relink from the dialog, the local directory is opened.

To modify your assets, you can check out Experience Manager assets directly from the local folder on your device and can immediately begin making edits. To check out an asset, do the following:

You can easily check in assets back to Experience Manager Assets with proper versioning and comments after you have finished editing them in your Creative Cloud app.

To check in an asset, do the following:

To discard the changes made to a checked out asset, you can cancel the check-out. Canceling the check-out releases the asset and unlocks it for other users to check out and modify it. Canceling check-out results in the changes being lost.

You can access file details for assets in Experience Manager Assets, for example thumbnail, basic metadata, and versions from within the panel.

To access the file details, open the context menu, and select File Details. You can also click directly on the assets thumbnail or asset’s name directly in the panel to access the file details. To view all versions of an asset, click the Version list.

With Adobe Asset Link, brands can easily grant their agencies access to project assets by adding the agencies as a trusted domain in their environment. For step-by-step instructions, see Authorized domains. If domain trusting does not comply with company policy, the company must provision a Creative Cloud for enterprise seat for the agency so its assets belong to the company.