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WPBeginner» Blog» Beginners Guide» How to Crop, Rotate, Scale, and Flip Images in WordPress

How to Crop, Rotate, Scale, and Flip Images in WordPress

Last updated on November 3rd, 2014 by Editorial Staff
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How to Crop, Rotate, Scale, and Flip Images in WordPress

Did you know that you can do the basic image editing in the WordPress backend? What do we mean by basic? Well simply cropping, rotating, scaling image sizes, and flipping the vertically or horizontally. When using WordPress for micro-blogging or when writing a quick post on the go, you will often find yourself limited to softwares. One example would be when you do not have your own computer and have to rely on public computers to publish a post. Why use a third-party image editor just to resize or crop your image when WordPress can do the job for you. In this article, we will show you how to use WordPress as a basic image editor that lets you crop, rotate, scale, and flip images.

Video Tutorial

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If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.

First thing you need to do is upload your image. You can add it while you are writing a post or by going to the Media » Add New tab.

WordPress Media Uploader

Then once your image is uploaded, you just need to click on the little button that says Edit Image.

Edit Image in WordPress

You will be taken to an screen that looks like this:

Editing Images in WordPress

Just select the area you want to crop. Or click on the rotate / flipping icon. You can click to scale. You can even crop based on ratio. Pretty handy little feature right?

Have you used it before? We know we have.

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36 Comments

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  1. TimGS says:
    Apr 16, 2018 at 1:18 pm

    I am using wordpress 4.9.5 on an IPad mini. When I go to scale an image all the selections work until I press the scale button; the image is cropped but I only get about 1/2 the width of the original crop selection. Anyone see this problem?

    Reply
  2. Justin says:
    Sep 17, 2017 at 5:43 pm

    Thanks for sharing! Just used the crop tool. Very handy!!

    Reply
  3. Steven Denger says:
    Jul 15, 2017 at 9:47 am

    This does not work at all and is not in the least bit helpful. WordPress is the most horrid place to try to work with images. My featured images in my posts list pages are all cut – cropped out and only show a partial photo. I have tried all kinds of plugins that wp beginner has suggested and none of them work at all. I use the Awaken theme and the author will not respond to fix his worthless theme. The site that I am working on will have to be deleted because of wordpress being such a horrid cms to work with.

    Reply
    • TimGS says:
      Apr 16, 2018 at 1:20 pm

      A year later, I am experiencing your problem on an iPad mini….but not on a PC

      Reply
  4. Zohaib says:
    Feb 5, 2017 at 2:10 pm

    Cropping function doesn’t work anymore.
    Any plugin that can do image cropping in media library?

    Reply
  5. Peter Willianson says:
    Dec 22, 2016 at 1:44 pm

    I dont get that menu when i click edit image.. i am using bluehost.. i cant do anything to the images that are loading rotated 90 degrees.. fyi they not rotated when loaded to other sites.. this is specific to wordpress bluehost

    Reply
  6. amy says:
    Nov 1, 2016 at 6:26 pm

    There is no edit button on my end. Looks like I’m not the only one.

    Reply
  7. Linda Strader says:
    Sep 1, 2016 at 2:56 pm

    Does this work with the free version? I see NO options to edit photos, and all the ones I uploaded are rotated the wrong way.

    Reply
  8. Ra. says:
    Aug 25, 2016 at 4:46 am

    Does nt work, anymore. It is just not there.

    Reply
  9. Matteo says:
    Dec 28, 2015 at 8:49 am

    Hi,

    when you scale an image from the media library, does it automatically reduce the quality of the image in every post/page where it was previously published or is it necessary to load it again in each single page to speed up the site?

    Cheers

    Reply
  10. mike cooper says:
    Jul 20, 2015 at 2:29 am

    Anyone had the issue when you rotate an image you get the following. ‘Could not load the preview image. Please reload the page and try again.’??

    I have GD and ImageMagick installed..

    flip works ok just not rotate and crop.

    Reply
  11. Craig Canapari says:
    Jul 3, 2015 at 5:35 pm

    I just discovered this yesterday. However, it seems to scale it on the fly as GTMetrix said that scaling images (that I had scaled using the tools above) was slowing down my page loading. I turned off Photon to be sure it wasn’t a cached image and also cleared my cache.

    Reply
  12. Jason says:
    Jun 18, 2015 at 8:38 pm

    I must admit, the editing of photographs is not very clear. I thought I had it all sorted and when I published it the image was huge and you only saw our eyes. I understand that the scale image has to be adjusted, but come on guys, we are all not up to speed with stuff like that. We want idiot proof editing and there are plenty on the market that do such. please have a look at it or you will lose this customer very quickly

    Reply
  13. Ron Strilaeff says:
    Nov 18, 2012 at 5:23 pm

    I’ve played with that edit feature, but cannot figure out how to get it to lock the aspect ratio. Let’s say I want a contributor to upload an image and then crop the part to show as the thumbnail before saving it. The numbers under “Image Crop -> Aspect Ratio” don’t seem to do anything and sometimes won’t let me enter any values. What are they for anyways?

    Reply
  14. Ed Power says:
    Sep 17, 2012 at 7:51 am

    This crop does not work when I try to save the crop as thumbnail only – I want to show a cropped image as a thumbnail in a gallery page, and then show the full version when launched in the lightbox. Is this possible

    Reply
  15. IgorPureta says:
    Jan 12, 2012 at 2:16 pm

    Thanks for the good post. So far I figured out what you have written. What I can’t manage is following:

    My featured image is 960×332 to fit into home page slider. When I crop the picture I want to save cropped part as thumbnail so I can include it in the post. That is all managed by WP itself. What I didn’t mange is to change thumbnail from default crop to the crop I selected. No matter how many times I have cropped, saved, deleted or whatever is possible I can’t complete it. Could you please, explain it. Thank you!

    Reply
  16. KreativTheme says:
    Jan 8, 2012 at 2:55 am

    I already use a few times this feature, but today I learned a few more tricks. Thanks a lot for the great tut …

    Reply
  17. Roderick Dunne says:
    Jan 6, 2012 at 7:49 am

    Nice feature – never noticed it.

    One thing to ponder: Does it save an updated version of the file which is then referenced (i.e. if the edited pic is in a post)?

    I’d just be concerned that page load times could be increased if an inserted image in a WP post needs to be dynamically cropped/edited for correct display on each users page request.

    Reply
    • Otto says:
      Jan 7, 2012 at 3:06 pm

      @Roderick Dunne The final result replaces the existing image. It doesn’t need to perform those operations every time.

      Reply
  18. AnTo says:
    Jan 5, 2012 at 6:57 pm

    Well, it’s nice but if more functions can be provided for photo editing that would be amazing! However, it might consumes more web space or usage if it goes!

    Reply
  19. petebocken says:
    Jan 5, 2012 at 5:15 pm

    Crop has never worked for me. The Save button never works. It’s always grayed out. Actually in your post screenshot, the save button is also grayed out. Anyone else get crop to work?

    Reply
    • Otto says:
      Jan 7, 2012 at 3:05 pm

      @petebocken The save button is greyed out because the selection is still being made. Make your selection, then click the “Crop” button in the upper right to confirm the selection. Then it will perform the crop and you can save the result.

      Reply
      • BarryFuchs says:
        Jan 11, 2012 at 5:12 pm

        @Otto@petebocken

        I had been confused by this, too, and though that crop either didn’t work on my installation or only worked for certain file types (ie jpg but not png). The process of selecting first and clicking “Crop” second seems opposite of other programs that I’ve used, such as Acrobat and Picasa. But, at least I know how to do it now!

        Reply
        • Chris Howard says:
          Jul 10, 2014 at 11:58 pm

          Yeah, it’s ridiculous that I have google to find out how to do something that should be intuitive

    • Otto says:
      Jan 7, 2012 at 3:07 pm

      @petebocken Sorry, I meant upper left, of course.

      Reply
  20. Brad Dalton says:
    Jan 5, 2012 at 4:38 pm

    Only used it once but will probably have another go next time. Prefer using MS picture manager but nice tutorial. Pics look good

    Reply
  21. dunfalach says:
    Jan 5, 2012 at 1:45 pm

    @tonyjalicea When I see WP, my first thought is Wordperfect. #youmightbeanoldnerdif

    Reply
    • tonyjalicea says:
      Jan 5, 2012 at 1:46 pm

      @dunfalach Well that’s a blast from the past.

      Reply
  22. Moe_NYC says:
    Jan 5, 2012 at 1:21 pm

    @tonyjalicea Whoa. How did I miss that? I had no clue. You think you know someone. WordPress, she’s so sexy! :)

    Reply
    • tonyjalicea says:
      Jan 5, 2012 at 1:24 pm

      @Moe_NYC Indeed!

      Reply
  23. itravelwithlove says:
    Jan 5, 2012 at 10:17 am

    @wpbeginner how to upload 2 or more photos at once in a New Post? Pls reply.

    Reply
    • wpbeginner says:
      Jan 5, 2012 at 10:18 am

      @itravelwithlove Just drag two photos or as many you want at once in the drag drop media uploader.

      Reply
      • itravelwithlove says:
        Jan 5, 2012 at 10:21 am

        @wpbeginner that’s what I do, but after that, I still need to upload it in my post one by one. :|

        Reply
        • wpbeginner says:
          Jan 5, 2012 at 10:22 am

          @itravelwithlove You mean insert it in your post one by one.. Yes because most of the time you insert images at different spots.

        • wpbeginner says:
          Jan 5, 2012 at 10:23 am

          @itravelwithlove if you want to add all images one after another perhaps in a gallery format then u can do this: http://t.co/JOVHrsVQ

        • itravelwithlove says:
          Jan 5, 2012 at 10:25 am

          @wpbeginner I was able to try that too. Thank you for the help!☺

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