A mechanism that allows an image object to maintain state information that provides on-demand rasterization of its content to meet the needs of a specific application or output device is described. A modified resultant proxy image is linked with its original content such that the ability to access the original content is preserved. In this way, on-demand rasterization is available at any time based on requirements of a specific application or a specific device. More particularly, an image processing command set formed into an edit list is associated with the modified resultant proxy image that links it to its original content.