The all new WordPress 2.9 has beefed up the Media Manager in a major way. WP 2.9 beta unveiled and all new Image editor build in to the WordPress back end. One less reason to have to go beyond WP-Admin for great blog posts, one more reason to love WordPress.

The new WordPress feature consists of two main parts. An image control bar, allowing image rotation, image flips and image cropping. Included with the main WP image edit bar are both undo and redo buttons as well. The second portion deals with the image size and cropping aspects. This not only show pixel size for cropping but allows aspect ratio adjustments. Finishing up the main functions is the ability to adjust images or thumbnails independently and all at once.

As you can see with the screen shot of the new WP image editing bar everything is laid out in a very straightforward manner. Buttons from left to right are: Image Cropping Activation, counter clockwise image rotation, clockwise image rotation, horizontal image flips, vertical image flips, undo button and redo button with the image scaling panel underneath on the right side.

The second portion as again shown in the screen shot deals with the image sizing and cropping settings. First you have the image aspect ration adjustments. Directly under the aspect settings are the image cropping selections settings. These ‘activate’ after you choose the crop function from the topbar and autofill to the selection size. After the initial size has been loaded you may then adjust to custom pixel width or height as desired. Below the crop and size adjustments are the thumbnail settings and previews.

One of the most interesting aspects to the new WP image editors features is the select-ability to what you apply your changes. For instance you may now change the image size only for your post and make entirely different changes to the thumbnail. A very handy new tool considering WP2.9 has included built in thumbnail features as well.

To illustrate what each main function does, our friends who were in the middle of an early beta upgrade to their upcoming blog, were kind enough to let me test WP 2.9’s basic functions and take screen shots. I must admit it was great fun as well, in seconds I understood it and everything made perfect sense.

The beginning unedited image.

A counter clockwise image adjustment.

A vertical image flip.

A horizontal image flip.

As you can see, the new image editor while not robust in features does provide many much need tweaks. A whole new world of potential has been opened for photo blogs and image posting. No longer will you need to re-size and correct landscape to portrait shifts for you blog with external editors. This will also make use of the new thumbnail feature much simpler. Again instead of painstakingly adjusting and uploading images until the fit properly, you can do it directly in your WordPress backend.

I really hope you enjoy the new features as much as i did, after getting to play with them, I have a whole new view of what to do with posts. Look for more WordPress 2.9 tips tricks and sneak peeks soon because this writer for one, is hooked.