I don’t find the picture editor in WordPress to be all that intuitive. Because I can’t be the only one out there that feels this way I figured that I’d walk through uploading a picture and show you how to edit it online. First off I wanted to let you know what version I am writing about. I am running version 3.0.1. I don’t see this changing too much in future version. I think these abilities are there since 2.5. People with WordPress experience will not need to read the first part of this article. You can skip directly to “How to Editing WordPress Thumbnail”.
Upload Picture to the WordPress Media Manager
I’m going to warn you this part of the “How to Article” is going to be VERY basic. To upload the picture to the Media Manager you must follow these steps:
1.) Log into WordPress (Duh!)
2.) Click on “Media” menu and then select “Add New”
3.) On the “Upload New Media” screen click the “Select Files” button.
4.) Select the file you want to upload to WordPress. I’m selecting the raccoon picture.
5.) Depending on the size of the file it will take some time. If it is really big WordPress automatically compresses the file for you.
6.) Rename the picture and hit “Save All Changes” button. This will complete the process of uploading the picture to the website.
Congradulation you’ve uploaded the picture to WordPress. Now onto part 2.
How to edit WordPress Thumbnail picture
This assumes that you just finished uploading the picture into WordPress using the steps above.
1.) You should now be at the Media Library
2.) Hover over the picture you just uploaded and click edit.
3.) Click “Edit Image”
4.) Under Thumbnail settings click “Thumbnail”.
5.) Make sure to select “1:1” Aspect ratio.
6.) Hold down your shift key and make the selection. Because you made the aspect ratio 1:1 the selection will be a square.
7.) This is the part of the process that I think is not the most intuitive. I would have thought if you just hit “Save” WordPress would save your selection! I then thought… Well what happens if you hit “Update Media”? I’ll tell you what happens. Nothing! Step #8 shows you how to save the selection. (Sorry for the rant)
8.)You’ve now got to click the “crop” tool button. This will finalize the crop.
9.) You can now hit “Save”.
10.) Click “Update Media”. You’re Thumbnail view should now be updated!
11.) You’re done!
Brijesh Chauhan says
I did exactly what you said to edit the thumbail image. After I hit save button, no change appeared in thumbnail image.
So I wanted to give it another try. But now whenever I go to edit same image again, it does not give me option to chose between “All image sizes, thumbnail or all image size except thumbnail” for that particular image.
I have that option for all other images but if I try to edit any thumbnail, that options is gone and there is no edit in thumbnail image!
Any suggestions?
Jared Heinrichs says
Not sure. I just checked the steps I posted again and everything works as expected. Are you all up to date on your WP patches? – PS – Great article on how to make passwords.
Dion GeBorde says
Hi Jared,
First, thanks for writing this post. You’re right, this media thing in WP is completely unintuitive.
All that said, I’m having the exact same problem as Brijesh. It’s exasperating. I attempt the edit — in my case scaling — hit thumbnail … save … update and nothing happens, except the entire thumbnail panel disappears from the Edit Media page. I’m using WP 3.0.1 on Windows 7 machine, with Builder theme v2.6.5.
I haven’t installed ANY patches that I’m aware of. I wasn’t even aware there was such a thing. Where do I go to get them and how do I install them, please? Perhaps you could write another super-basic post for that! 😉
Marco Fiori says
thanks! This was perfect for me.
Jenny says
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
I’ve been messing around with this for weeks and was getting really frustrated. This is THE MOST USEFUL post on this topic–even better than WordPress’s own help sites.
Thanks so much for sharing this. Your instructions are clear and perfect. Now I have thumbnails just like I want ’em.
Jared Heinrichs says
You’re welcome. If you really like it you could always tweet it or link to it on Facebook 😉 I love extra links.
Steve Bondy says
Thanks so much for this post. It’s exactly what I needed and probably saved me hours of frustration.
Stephen says
Thank you – I was also struggling with this.
Ciantic says
I totally agree. This is not intuitive:
1. Choose Crop tool and drag area.
2. Click Crop tool again to actually crop.
Why on earth they didn’t do normal action & apply:
1. Choose Crop tool and drag area.
2. Click apply / save what ever to accept the cropping.
Hair maddening stuff, I’m in process of creating WP network for one client and non-intuitive stuff in UI causes just unnecessary support phone calls.
Bill says
Well, this SOMETIMES works for me and sometimes it doesn’t work. Some of the times I hit the crop button in Step 8 and not a darn thing happens. Can you explain that?
AshFlash the Original says
Worked awesome, once I figured out what the hell I was doing! Thanks for the tut
cosanna says
Agree. Totally unintuitive! Got to step 8 and crop is still greyed out so I can’t crop….what am I doing wrong now?
James T Kelly says
Thanks for sharing this. You’re right, it’s not intuitive in the slightest! You’ve saved me a lot of headaches.
World Traveller says
Wow! All this time I’d thought the crop thumbnail functionality was broken – I’d spotted the Crop & Save buttons were greyed out and tried all sorts to get them to come alive. Today I was feeling a little more patient, so googled and this post was the first thing I clicked on.
All this time it’s because I’ve not been doing the all-important step 8. Doh!! Thank you so much for taking the time to document this.
John says
Thank you! This was driving me up the wall. Very clearly explained.
Cathryn says
THANK YOU!
peg says
This was a perfect tutorial!! Thank you so much!