When adding photos to your site, it is important to be aware of file size, both physical dimensions of the photo (pixels) and storage size (megabytes). Also, you want to be aware of the photo contents itself: What part of the photo do you want to use? Photos taken with your digital camera are almost certainly too big for the web, so you will need to make them smaller. In addition, you may not want to use the entire image. Perhaps you want to focus on a particular area of the photo. If you have access to Photoshop or some other image editing program, you can edit the photo before you upload it. If you do not have access to an image editing program or do not know how to use it, WordPress offers some basic image editing tools that you can use as you upload photos before you actually place it into your post. This can be used whenever you are uploading images to WordPress.

Q: How do I edit an image within WordPress?

A: The image below is the dialog box you will see when you upload images for placing into a post or uploading into the media library. Note the Edit Image button under the thumbnail on the left side (outlined in red below). Select this to open the image editing dialog box.

Cropping

Crop photos when the desired proportions are different than those of the existing photo, or when you only want to use a portion of the photo. Some WordPress themes use photos of specific sizes, so cropping will be useful then too.

First, with your mouse (click and drag), select the portion of the image you want to keep. Once you’re happy with the selection, click on the Crop button (outlined in red below). You will then have your new image. If you are pleased with the result, click Save. If not, click Cancel. Note that you must click Save for the crop to finalize.

Generally speaking, you will want to crop the image before you scale it down. Be sure to crop the image to the same aspect ratio of the final photo size. You can hold down the Shift key to adjust your crop box and keep the aspect ratio locked.

Scaling

Select Scale Image to expand the image scaling options (outlined in red below).

This is where you can change the pixel dimensions of the photo. In most cases, the image width should be no larger than about 800 pixels if placed inside of a blog post. The width will adjust proportionally.

When done scaling, select Save. This will close the image editing dialog box. Then you can continue placing the photo into a post, page or uploading to the media library.

Rotating and Flipping

In addition to cropping and scaling, the media editor gives you the options of rotating and flipping (outlined in red below).

Want to learn more about WordPress features and why you should transition your website to this incredible platform? Call me at (612) 283-4846 and I’d be happy to tell you why our clients have chosen WordPress to house their online presence!