In the past, image manipulation in WordPress was an alchemy of mixing GD functions and WordPress functions together to (hopefully) turn out the desired result. In WordPress 3.5+, GD is abstracted out, and a new class, WP_Image_Editor, allows easy manipulation of image files. This lets you perform simple resizing, crops, flips, rotates, and real-time streaming of those results using Imagick or GD. But, that’s not all! You can also easily extend WordPress’ classes to add your own functions, or replace the entire engine with your own.

This session will walk through what’s changed for image manipulation in 3.5, and explain ways you can take advantage of the APIs, both through using them directly and extending them for plugins of your own.