WP SmartCrop Pro: Responsive Image Cropping

Keep picture subjects in view as layouts change

WP SmartCrop crops images to dimensions defined by your CSS while preserving their proportions. It keeps a selected focal point visible and positions it as close as possible to a rule-of-thirds composition. This helps the same image fit responsive cards, featured images, post content, and galleries without appearing stretched or squashed.

WP SmartCrop Pro is described as adding automatic focal-point selection. The add-on listing says that capability was still in development, so its current availability is unclear. The documented WP SmartCrop process lets you choose a focal point manually in the Media Library.

Choose images and set focal points

Install and activate the add-on, then upload an image to the Media Library. Select the image, enable Smart Cropping, and choose Edit Focal Point. Click the image area you want kept in view, then apply the change. You can choose a various focal point later or disable smart cropping for an individual image.

Insert the image into a page or post, then use the img.wpsmartcrop-image selector in your CSS to target it and define its display dimensions. The listing's basic test uses a block-level image at full available width with a fixed height.

Responsive image support and browser fallbacks

The plugin works with WordPress responsive srcset images, includes an image preloader to prevent partially loaded images from appearing, and is described as lightweight for images in post content. It uses semantic HTML5 and CSS3 in modern browsers, with HTML4 and CSS2 fallbacks for older browsers. Legacy support can improve existing cropped thumbnail sizes without changes to your CSS.

The listing names W3 Total Cache, Wordfence, WPEngine EverCache, Better WordPress Minify, and Google's PageSpeed Module among compatible caching and optimization utilities. Its primary browser testing includes Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge.

For theme integrations, contact Bytes.co. The source describes a separate paid branch for theme developers and notes that integration considerations may apply.