What's New in Photo Center

Release dates

• Sandbox - Tuesday, October 6, 2026
• Production - Tuesday, October 13, 2026

Release summary

Photo Center now lets editors see and correct more of the metadata that photographers and wire services embed in their images, and keeps that metadata consistent when photos are downloaded for syndication.

New fields you can edit

• SEO Filename is now on the photo edit page (single and multi edit). When you leave the field it’s cleaned up automatically (accents and special characters removed) so it’s ready to use in Resizer V2 URLs.
• Four more IPTC fields are now read from uploaded images and editable in Photo Center: Writer/Editor, Category, Supplemental Categories and Urgency. Photo Center also reads Country Name when an image has no country code.
• Photo Center checks values against IPTC size limits before saving (for example, Category is a short code of up to 3 characters), so downloaded images stay valid.

New fields in photo ANS

Photos uploaded after this release may include up to four new fields in their Arc XP Native Specification (ANS), filled in automatically from the image’s embedded IPTC data:

• additional_properties.iptc_caption_writer (Writer/Editor)
• additional_properties.iptc_category (Category)
• additional_properties.iptc_supplemental_categories (Supplemental Categories, a list)
• additional_properties.iptc_urgency (Urgency, a number from 1 to 9)

They appear whenever the uploaded image contains those IPTC fields, even if the fields are turned off in your image type settings. Existing photos only get them when a value is saved. address.country_name may also now be filled from the image’s IPTC Country Name when it has no country code. If you process photo ANS in your own systems, make sure they accept these new fields.

Choose what shows where

• The new fields are not visible by default, so nothing changes in the Photo Center UI until you enable them. Turn each one on, and optionally make it required, per image type in Settings > Image Field Settings > Manage Image Types.
• Templates you’ve already created under an image type only pick up its field settings when the template is saved. After enabling the new fields on an image type, open each of its templates in Settings > Image Field Settings > Manage Templates and save it, or the fields won’t appear when uploading with that template. Templates you create afterwards start with the image type’s settings.
• Usage Instructions, SEO Filename and the four new IPTC fields can now be shown on photo cards on the Photo Center landing page, through Settings > Image Metadata Card.

Downloads carry your edits

• Downloading a photo with replace=true writes your edits for the new fields into the image’s IPTC metadata. Values you haven’t edited stay as they were in the original file.
• New for API users: add writeXmp=true (with replace=true) to also write the same values into the image’s XMP metadata, so tools that read XMP see your edits too. JPEG only.

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None. To use the new fields in the Photo Center UI, administrators must turn them on per image type in Settings > Image Field Settings > Manage Image Types, then re-save each existing template under that image type in Settings > Image Field Settings > Manage Templates. If you process photo ANS in your own systems, make sure they accept the new fields.

Release dates

• Sandbox - Tuesday, April 7, 2026
• Production - Tuesday, April 14, 2026

Release summary

Additional Photo Crop Presets

New aspect ratios (2:3 and 4:5) are now available for image cropping.

Users affected

Editorial Users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox - Tuesday, February 17, 2026
• Production - Tuesday, February 24, 2026

Release summary

Maintenance updates were implemented to improve the reliability and extensibility of the cropping functionality, and to support search queries longer than 118 characters.

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox (All Regions) - Tuesday, January 13, 2026
• Production (Non-US Regions) - Tuesday, January 20, 2026
• Production (US Region) - Thursday, January 22, 2026

Release summary

This release includes upgrades to our search infrastructure and a minor hotfix for double-quote searches when using Japanese text.

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox - Monday, December 8, 2025
• Production - Monday, December 15, 2025

Release summary

This releases includes a fix where searching with double quotes will narrow results better, as well as a fix for photo imports which include existing Task IDs in the image metadata.

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox and Production - Wednesday, November 5, 2025

Release summary

Photo Center 1.84.2 Hotfix was successfully deployed to all regions on November 5. This update serves as a patch to the previous Photo Center 1.84.2 platform upgrade release.

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Production - Monday, October 27, 2025

Release summary

Platform upgrades deployed to Sandbox on October 7 will be promoted to Production on the following schedule: Monday, October 27 (APAC), Tuesday, October 28 (Europe), and Wednesday, October 29 (US).

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox - Tuesday, October 7, 2025
• Production - Wednesday, October 22, 2025

Release summary

This release contains the following:

• Fixed an issue that caused error notifications to contain blank text instead of the expected descriptive error message.
• Fixed an issue that caused the buttons in the upload image flow to occasionally display the wrong actions.
• Additional platform upgrades.

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox - Wednesday, September 10, 2025
• Production - Wednesday, September 17, 2025

Release summary

This release fixes an issue where oversized images (those over 10,000 pixels in height or width) were shifting focal points and crop windows. Now, crop and focal point functionality works as expected for oversized images.

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox - Monday, August 4, 2025
• Production - Wednesday, August 20, 2025

Release summary

This release includes the following updates: 

• Ensures that users on smaller screens can click the Upload button when uploading a new image to Photo Center from Composer
• Removes the version number from the Photo Center UI. (The version number will continue to be tracked in Arc XP Learning Center.)
• Fixes a bug where the permission Upload Images From Selector was not being properly respected. Users without this permission can no longer have the option to upload images from the selector in Composer. If users need the ability to upload images from the selector in Composer but can no longer do so after this release, admins must grant them this privilege in Permissions application.

Users affected

None

Photo Center Administrators

Action required

Release dates

• Sandbox - Wednesday, June 18, 2025
• Production - Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Release summary

This release includes the following updates: 

• In according with our Personally Identifiable Information (PII) guidelines, user’s names no longer appear in the Gallery Edit presence indicator.
• When user owner (additional_properties.owner) is updated through the API, that new value is now searchable.
• API uploads now require the organization ID owner.id to be present.
• Fixes bug where EXIF-rotated images weren’t saving the swapped dimensions correctly.
• Fixes bug where full-width spaces were breaking search terms for CJK characters.

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox and Production - Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Release summary

This update prepares Photo Center for an upcoming database upgrade. It includes:

• Adding more space and resources to our database to handle data more smoothly
• Improving how the app disconnects from the database when it shuts down, to avoid errors
• Updating a security certificate that helps keep the database connection secure

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox - Wednesday, March 26, 2025
• Production - Wednesday, April 1, 2025

Release summary

This release includes the following items:

• WebP is now a supported file type in Photo Center.
• Cropping or setting focal points on large images where Resizer V2 URLs were present in the Arc XP Native Specification (ANS) now works as expected for all images regardless of size. If you requested a rollback due to the shifting crop or focal point, your images now have V2 URLs again.
• Now, when Photo Center adds the seo_filename property to the resize URL, it separates it with a dash (-). For example, /resizer/v2/screenshot-MKGSWIHP7JMHTOYWRSDEYSY3Y4.png.
• Images with EXIF rotation set (like those taken by a smart phone) now show the correct dimensions when you upload them to Photo Center.
• The date and corresponding day of the week are now aligned correctly in the calendar when you upload a photo.
• In lightboxes, the date in the tooltip now accurately reflects the photo metadata dates.

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox - Monday, February 10, 2025
• Production - Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Release summary

This release include the following fixes:

• Special characters in the slug field of tags are no longer removed in galleries. Tags now retain special characters as entered.
• The photographer’s name now appears correctly when uploading multiple photos with the same photographer name.
• The Copy to All option during bulk image uploads no longer causes duplicated metadata in the photographer credits field.

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox - Wednesday, January 29, 2025
• Production - Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Release summary On February 26, all pre-generated Image Resizer URLs in the Arc XP Native Specification (ANS) will transition to Resizer V2 paths in Production. As of January 29, this update is available in Sandbox. Four image ANS fields use Resizer V2 paths, and the Arc XP Photo Center UI uses the corresponding updated Resizer V2 URLs.

The following ANS fields in the Additional Properties section of Image documents will update from /resizer/ to /resizer/v2/. Image documents are embedded as content elements or prompt items in primary stories (articles) and galleries documents.

• additional_properties.resizeUrl
• additional_properties.thumbnailResizeUrl
• additional_properties.fullSizeResizeUrl
• additional_properties.proxyUrl

These fields support image display across Photo Center, Composer, and other Arc XP applications.

Content API updates

• New stories and galleries created after the release will reflect the updated image fields in Content API.
• Existing published content will require republishing to apply these updates.
• Legacy V1 URLs in previously published content will continue to function and will eventually redirect to their V2 equivalents. See Resizer v1-to-v2 Redirects.

Testing environment

We’ve allocated five weeks between the Sandbox and Production deployments to allow you time for adjustments.

Examples of changes

{
  "_id": "MHSU7SEBTJDAFFEQJXZJXWAUF4",
  "canonical_url": "/2025/02/06/dog-gone-it/",
  "canonical_website": "beta-max-extreme",
  "created_date": "2025-02-06T22:10:45Z",
  "promo_items": {
    "basic": {
      "_id": "ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI",
      "additional_properties": {
        "fullSizeResizeUrl": "/resizer/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png?auth=05b1f30c42a15572a70651bd4ba3d94942f00849c3f5eeca6b4ec1e48a94b466",
        "galleries": [
          {
            "headlines": {
              "basic": "Dog Gone-it"
            },
            "_id": "MHSU7SEBTJDAFFEQJXZJXWAUF4"
          }
        ],
        "galleryOrder": 0,
        "ingestionMethod": "manual",
        "mime_type": "image/png",
        "originalName": "XZ4Y7VHPMFDXBFMKRM7S7FISHQ.png",
        "originalUrl": "https://cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/sandbox.arclabs/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png",
        "proxyUrl": "/resizer/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png?auth=05b1f30c42a15572a70651bd4ba3d94942f00849c3f5eeca6b4ec1e48a94b466",
        "ptgVersion": 0,
        "published": true,
        "resizeUrl": "/resizer/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png?auth=05b1f30c42a15572a70651bd4ba3d94942f00849c3f5eeca6b4ec1e48a94b466",
        "restricted": false,
        "thumbnailResizeUrl": "/resizer/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png?auth=05b1f30c42a15572a70651bd4ba3d94942f00849c3f5eeca6b4ec1e48a94b466&width=300",
        "version": 1,
        "template_id": 1601
      },
  "content_elements": [
    {
      "_id": "ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI",
      "additional_properties": {
        "fullSizeResizeUrl": "/resizer/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png?auth=05b1f30c42a15572a70651bd4ba3d94942f00849c3f5eeca6b4ec1e48a94b466",
        "galleries": [
          {
            "headlines": {
              "basic": "Dog Gone-it"
            },
            "_id": "MHSU7SEBTJDAFFEQJXZJXWAUF4"
          }
        ],
        "galleryOrder": 0,
        "ingestionMethod": "manual",
        "mime_type": "image/png",
        "originalName": "XZ4Y7VHPMFDXBFMKRM7S7FISHQ.png",
        "originalUrl": "https://cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/sandbox.arclabs/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png",
        "proxyUrl": "/resizer/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png?auth=05b1f30c42a15572a70651bd4ba3d94942f00849c3f5eeca6b4ec1e48a94b466",
        "ptgVersion": 0,
        "published": true,
        "resizeUrl": "/resizer/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png?auth=05b1f30c42a15572a70651bd4ba3d94942f00849c3f5eeca6b4ec1e48a94b466",
        "restricted": false,
        "thumbnailResizeUrl": "/resizer/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png?auth=05b1f30c42a15572a70651bd4ba3d94942f00849c3f5eeca6b4ec1e48a94b466&width=300",
        "version": 1,
        "template_id": 1601
      },

  "website": "beta-max-extreme",
  "website_url": "/2025/02/06/dog-gone-it/"
}

{
  "_id": "MHSU7SEBTJDAFFEQJXZJXWAUF4",
  "canonical_url": "/2025/02/06/dog-gone-it/",
  "canonical_website": "beta-max-extreme",
  "created_date": "2025-02-06T22:10:45Z",
  "promo_items": {
    "basic": {
      "_id": "ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI",
      "additional_properties": {
        "fullSizeResizeUrl": "/resizer/v2/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png?auth=05b1f30c42a15572a70651bd4ba3d94942f00849c3f5eeca6b4ec1e48a94b466",
        "galleries": [
          {
            "headlines": {
              "basic": "Dog Gone-it"
            },
            "_id": "MHSU7SEBTJDAFFEQJXZJXWAUF4"
          }
        ],
        "galleryOrder": 0,
        "ingestionMethod": "manual",
        "mime_type": "image/png",
        "originalName": "XZ4Y7VHPMFDXBFMKRM7S7FISHQ.png",
        "originalUrl": "https://cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/sandbox.arclabs/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png",
        "proxyUrl": "/resizer/v2/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png?auth=05b1f30c42a15572a70651bd4ba3d94942f00849c3f5eeca6b4ec1e48a94b466",
        "ptgVersion": 0,
        "published": true,
        "resizeUrl": "/resizer/v2/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png?auth=05b1f30c42a15572a70651bd4ba3d94942f00849c3f5eeca6b4ec1e48a94b466",
        "restricted": false,
        "thumbnailResizeUrl": "/resizer/v2/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png?auth=05b1f30c42a15572a70651bd4ba3d94942f00849c3f5eeca6b4ec1e48a94b466&width=300",
        "version": 1,
        "template_id": 1601
      },
  "content_elements": [
    {
      "_id": "ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI",
      "additional_properties": {
        "fullSizeResizeUrl": "/resizer/v2/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png?auth=05b1f30c42a15572a70651bd4ba3d94942f00849c3f5eeca6b4ec1e48a94b466",
        "galleries": [
          {
            "headlines": {
              "basic": "Dog Gone-it"
            },
            "_id": "MHSU7SEBTJDAFFEQJXZJXWAUF4"
          }
        ],
        "galleryOrder": 0,
        "ingestionMethod": "manual",
        "mime_type": "image/png",
        "originalName": "XZ4Y7VHPMFDXBFMKRM7S7FISHQ.png",
        "originalUrl": "https://cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/sandbox.arclabs/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png",
        "proxyUrl": "/resizer/v2/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png?auth=05b1f30c42a15572a70651bd4ba3d94942f00849c3f5eeca6b4ec1e48a94b466",
        "ptgVersion": 0,
        "published": true,
        "resizeUrl": "/resizer/v2/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png?auth=05b1f30c42a15572a70651bd4ba3d94942f00849c3f5eeca6b4ec1e48a94b466",
        "restricted": false,
        "thumbnailResizeUrl": "/resizer/v2/ZOST5Q642ZB45LX4L47S4DTLEI.png?auth=05b1f30c42a15572a70651bd4ba3d94942f00849c3f5eeca6b4ec1e48a94b466&width=300",
        "version": 1,
        "template_id": 1601
      },

  "website": "beta-max-extreme",
  "website_url": "/2025/02/06/dog-gone-it/"
}

Users affected Photo Center users

Action required If your workflows rely on the affected ANS fields for validation or downstream integrations, you must ensure your systems are updated and tested. Key areas to validate include:

• ANS validation processes
• Send-to-print integrations
• Newsletter and social media provider integrations
• Mobile applications
• Feeds and third-party downstream integrations
• Front-end or back-end code referencing these fields

If you encounter any issues while validating your integrations, please open an Arc XP Customer Support ticket immediately.

Update: Unpublished image access through Resizer URL in ANS

A note for customers accessing unpublished images in external systemsL

With the release of Photo Center 1.82, images retrieved from ANS for use in systems external to Arc XP are now accessible only through the resizer URL if they have been published. Consequently, if you utilize images outside of Arc XP systems, the new V2 URLs of any unpublished image URLs fail.

If you are using unpublished images outside of Arc XP, contact Arc XP Customer Support. We will temporarily allow the use of Resizer V1 URLs so that you may continue to use unpublished image URLs externally until an alternate solution is in place.

Release dates

• Sandbox - Monday, December 16, 2024
• Production - Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Release summary

We are making a behind-the-scenes change to improve the architecture of Photo Center. Specifically, the Photo Center’s legacy user interface (UI) will be decoupled from the back end (API) and deployed as a static site.

This work is entirely on the back end and should not impact your experience or workflows. We are sharing this update as a precaution to keep you informed.

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox - Wednesday, November 13, 2024
• Production - Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Release summary

This release includes the following bug fixes: 

• Duplicate photographers no longer appear in Photo Center
• Photo time zone settings now appear as expected
• Additional minor fixes that improve performance and stability

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox and Production - Friday, November 1, 2024

Release summary

Photo Center fixed a bug where authors from Author Service weren’t populating in the Credits field on both photo and gallery edit pages.

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox and Production - Thursday, October 3, 2024

Release summary

This hotfix enhances search performance and resiliency on all photo and gallery search clusters as well as Photo API.

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox - Thursday, June 20, 2024 (was previously Monday, June 10, 2024)
• Production - Wednesday, August 21, 2024

On July 8, we implemented a hotfix in Sandbox to resolve an issue with Image Activity rendering. 

Release summary

You can now more easily manage your photo usage in Photo Center. This release includes the following enhancements: 

• Image search page and image selector - the image in Photo Center now includes an icon that indicates the story usage count in both a published or unpublished story. Knowing whether the image is already used in a story helps you determine whether to use the image again. Hovering over the icon displays a count of usage between published and unpublished stories.
• Expanded image view - the expand image view now includes more detail, providing you what stories the image is used in.
• Show change history - A new Show change history button now lets you view only the change history for the photo. Previously, the Show photo activity showed both the image usage data and the change history. Show photo activity now shows only the usage data, letting you more quickly and more easily view the information you’re looking for.
• Tracking Featured Media usage - Arc XP now tracks images used as Featured Media for a story as the image being used in a story.

Also consider the following items about image usage: 

• You must save a story with a new image for the system to reflect image usage in Photo Center.
• Image usage activity extends only to images used in the Arc XP platform and is limited to images added to a story or a gallery.
• The total image usage data reflected on the Image Search or Image Selector icon may be different than what you see in the expanded view. When you open the expanded image view, the system retrieves the image usage data and its details.

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox - Tuesday, April 9, 2024
• Production - Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Release summary

In an effort to improve our product, Arc XP is collecting certain performance data so we can analyze trends and make more strategic product decisions. This Photo Center 1.79 includes internal updates that enable data collection for Photo Center feature usage from users who have consented to share this data with Arc XP through the consent banner that was deployed on December 11, 2023.

Bug fix

Occasionally, new galleries may not display in search results if “In the last 24 hours/week/month” filters are selected before gallery creation. We fixed it so that new galleries will display once filters are re-applied by using the “Apply filter” button

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox - Monday, January 22, 2024
• Production - Monday, January 29, 2024 (was previously Wednesday, January 31, 2024)

Release summary

• When you select an image for a story in Composer through the Photo Center window, the correct photo now appears in the story.
• The Sponsored and Unsponsored gallery filters now appear as expected, even if a large number of website and tag filters exist.
• Now, only users with the correct permissions can crop photos.
• Lightboxes received minor workflow and UI improvements.
• Photo Center Settings - Templates now provides more insightful error messages.

Users affected

Photo Center users

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox - Wednesday, January 29, 2025
• Production - Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Release summary

This release introduces the following changes:

• IPTC Image Metadata Preservation - This release adds the ability to preserve IPTC Image Metadata, designed for publishers in jurisdictions that require identifying metadata on images. This feature is disabled by default but can be enabled upon request. Contact Arc XP Customer Support.
• Canvas Expansion - This release introduces a new feature in Resizer V2 that allows you to expand the canvas of an image, allowing you to add borders, change the aspect ratio without resizing the image, and combine images with watermark.
• Background Color - You now have the ability to specify a background color for transparent images or images with an expanded canvas.

For more information, see How to transform images with Resizer v2.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox - Wednesday, July 10, 2024
• Production - Wednesday, July 17, 2024

We now support Image Resizer V2 in secondary organizations. You can now migrate any secondary organizations from Resizer V1 to Resizer V2.

Release dates

• Sandbox - Tuesday, May 28, 2024
• Production - Tuesday, June 4, 2024

Release summary

Watermarks now have an additional layer of security for Resizer V2 to mitigate misuse. Now, if you want to use watermarks hosted outside of Photo Center, contact Arc XP Customer Support to have them added to an allowlist. You can also host your watermark image in Photo Center.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox - Tuesday, February 20, 2024
• Production - Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Release summary

• The release makes Smart and Focal crop parameters less restrictive, allowing you to pass only the width or height dimension instead of requiring both. Resizer V2 now automatically adjusts the other dimension to match the original aspect ratio.
• Certain third-party images now work as expected in Resizer V2.
• CloudFront image loader, Lambda@Edge, no longer adds a trailing slash for third-party URLs that are CloudFront or S3. This update appears only in Production.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox and Production - Monday, December 11, 2023

Release summary

We are deploying a hotfix to address internal 500 issues affecting several customers that is not impacting your resizing functionality.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

• Sandbox - Tuesday, November 7, 2023
• Production - Thursday, November 9, 2023

Release summary

The Smart Crop transformation now outputs better automated crops based on analysis of the image. Previously, the Smart Crop occasionally output an undesired crop selection, especially for a portrait image with a full body person as the subject of the image. Unfortunately, with this update, we have to walk back a previous improvement to Smart Crop, which allowed you to just specify width, height, or both. Now, you must define both width and height. We are looking to support just width, height, or both again in early Q1 of 2024.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

If you are interested in using Smart Crop in Production, do so only after November 9, 2023.