Jay Hoffmann

WordPress Developer, History enthusiast


Editing Crop in WordPress Images Before Upload

For a recent project, I had a need for a pretty simple workflow. I had a couple of image sizes, which I added with the add_image_size function which required a hard crop to a certain aspect ratio. The workflow for authors I was looking for was:

  1. Upload Image
  2. Edit the crop for these special sizes if they feel like
  3. Insert into post

All of this on the same screen. After installing and downloading a bunch of different options, I’m going to formally recommend Manual Image Crop.

Screen Shot 2016-04-13 at 3.46.00 PM

It’s not the prettiest option (that’s Post Thumbnail Editor), but it is the simplest and most flexible. It has a few options for each image size, but basically once you upload your image you can select the “Crop Image” option and then automatically create a new image crop for each size. And everything is brought into a pop-up window so you never have to leave the Media Uploader.

Screen Shot 2016-04-13 at 3.46.58 PM

So anyway, if you’re looking for a good post thumbnail crop editor, try out Manual Image Crop.