For the longest time, I’ve been waiting for WordPress to handle images better, and allow built in editing tools. Most people don’t have Photoshop, or even understand how to use most basic image editing tools like Irfanview, and so building in a crop and resize tool into WordPress will further lower the barrier to placing images on blog posts, and potentially save bandwidth as people can choose what they want the public to see in a much more fine grain way.
Jeff Chandler has gone ahead and done up a screencast showing the basic tools available so far in the release. He does note that this might not be the final way the tools are set up, but it does give you some idea of what is being worked on for the next release with regards to image editing.
I fired up my local server today and installed the latest version of WordPress 2.9 and was surprised to see the basic image editing tools already available in the media library. I decided that the best way to display them in action was through video which also gave me another reason to open up CamtasiaStudio. In the video, I show off each individual tool as well as provide feedback on the crop tool as at this stage, does not appear to be user friendly. But, it’s very early in the development stage so it will most likely be better once it hits the public’s hands. Check out the video.
If you want to check out that screencast, head on over to WPTavern.com.
