Managing Images and Other Media

All images and other media such as documents are stored in the WordPress Media Library. In most cases an editor will have little need to visit the library directly from the main menu in the WordPress Dashboard, but will instead use the links provided with other parts of the editor to add and update images within the context of what they are doing at the moment.

In general, when you’re editing a Page, Post, or Event, you will be given the opportunity to upload and insert images into your content without ever having to stop what you’re doing and visit the Media Library. Most of the advanced features mentioned below can also be done within the context of your current task, and without ever having to stop and visit the Media Library explicitly.

Image Editing

WordPress does have some unique and helpful features available that will allow you to make sure the media you upload is as suitable as possible for the use that you are making of it.

If you click on an image from with the Library, you’ll get a window called Attachment Details which shows all of the information that WordPress has about an image (when it was uploaded, who uploaded it, if it is attached to a specific Post, the file size, the image caption, the image URL, etc.). This popup also allows you to edit some of that information, delete the image, and most importantly for our purposes here, edit the image itself.

To edit the image, click the Edit Image button below the image. This will open up yet another window that allows you to crop, scale, and rotate the image.

Cropping

Cropping is the most useful of the image editing functions available in WordPress. To begin, click the Crop button at the top pf the screen to display a dotted line at the edges of the image, with eight “handles” (small grey squares) that allow you to resize that dotted line. The dotted line represents the final, cropped image that you will produce. Grab a “handle” with your mouse to move the line. Once the lines are where you want them to be, click the blue Apply Crop button to crop your image. After you’re done editing you must click the Save Edits button in the upper right to save the changes you’ve made to the image.

Scaling

Click the Scale button to change the size of the image. You probably won’t do this often, if at all, as images are sized automatically on the web, and you can simply drag an image to a new size if you insert it into a Page or Post. Nevertheless, it’s nice to have the ability if you need it.

When you click Scale, you’ll see two new fields to the right of the image that display the image’s current dimensions. Adjust the number in one or the other field to the new size, in pixels, that you would like the image to be, the other field should adjust itself automatically, keeping the image at the original aspect ratio. Bear in mind that making an image larger will just make it fuzzier. Once you’re happy with the new size, click Scale, and then click Save Edits.

Rotating An Image

The ability to rotate an image can be very useful, especially for images uploaded from a phone or camera images taken vertically. WordPress gives you the ability to Rotate an image 90° left or right, or if the image is upside down, you can rotate it 180°. Additionally, you can mirror the image horizontally or vertically. Unfortunately though, you cannot rotate an image arbitrarily, to make the horizon in a crooked photo horizontal for example. Simple click the Image Rotation button above the image and select which action you would like to do. Once done, you will again need to click Save Edits.

Save Edits

All of these image editing actions can be undone up until the point where you click Save Edits. Clicking Save Edits modifies the original image and overwrites the image saved by WordPress.