Before/After Photo Effect with jQuery

If you have a design or makeup blog, or if you are using before and after image comparison, this script will most likely be useful for you. In this tutorial, you will see how to add the Before/After plugin, a script that works with jQuery in order to display two pictures dynamically for comparing them at the same time.

To see how it works, click on the demo link from below and drag horizontally the small bar to see both images that are being compared:

Before & After Demo

Implementing this script is really easy. We just need jQuery, the Before/After script, and the two images to compare.

How to add Before/After Effect on Blogger Images

Step 1. Go to "Template" and click on the "Edit HTML" button. Once the template HTMK editor opens up, click anywhere inside the code area and press the CTRL + F keys to search for the following tag - hit Enter to find it:

</head>

Step 2. Right before </head> paste the following scripts:

<script src='http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.10.2/jquery.min.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script src='http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.10.3/jquery-ui.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script type='text/javascript'>
//<![CDATA[
(function(a){a.fn.extend({beforeAfter:function(b){var d={animateIntro:false,introDelay:1000,introDuration:1000,showFullLinks:true,imagePath:"/js/beforeAfter/"};var b=a.extend(d,b);var c=Math.round(Math.random()*100000000);return this.each(function(){var e=b;var h=a(this);var n=a("img:first",h).width();var p=a("img:first",h).height();a(h).width(n).height(p).css({overflow:"hidden",position:"relative",padding:"0"});var m=a("img:first",h).attr("src");var j=a("img:last",h).attr("src");a("img:first",h).attr("id","beforeimage"+c);a("img:last",h).attr("id","afterimage"+c);a("img",h).remove();a("div",h).css("float","left");a(h).prepend('<div id="dragwrapper'+c+'"><div id="drag'+c+'"><img width="8" height="56" alt="handle" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMlekq6Cw3K6Tcy2S9atH1SDV73fnui5LVXsD3v9_GZ8HKS6j7u8BOYdFs1JNyjKpPeBAwwGVm23L6w9NmMASWJqO_yhyWTdqdZv6qiZg-OA1eS2AHrF4-RMERlI7GmoS_mnl0ZJfRlt8v/s1600/handle.png" title="Drag to the left or right to see the Before/After" id="handle'+c+'" /></div></div>');a("#dragwrapper"+c).css({position:"absolute",padding:"0",left:(n/2)-(a("#handle"+c).width()/2)+"px","z-index":"20"}).width(a("#handle"+c).width()).height(p);a("#dragwrapper"+c).css({opacity:0.25});a("div:eq(2)",h).height(p).width(n/2).css({"background-image":"url("+m+")",position:"absolute",overflow:"hidden",left:"0px","z-index":"10"});a("div:eq(3)",h).height(p).width(n).css({"background-image":"url("+j+")",position:"absolute",overflow:"hidden",right:"0px"});a("#drag"+c).width(2).height(p).css({background:"#888",position:"absolute",left:"3px"});a("#beforeimage"+c).css({position:"absolute",top:"0px",left:"0px"});a("#afterimage"+c).css({position:"absolute",top:"0px",right:"0px"});a("#handle"+c).css({"z-index":"100",position:"relative",cursor:"pointer",top:(p/2)-(a("#handle"+c).height()/2)+"px",left:"-3px"});a(h).append('<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeLXSbF5s6nWTtTs-qrqE_xRCzymeYZHrP9CbwfMr294pp4VWhI6T30wVnRY0fTYKAL4FeJLaIt9SLOBxpUULyMA4a5zcnrXyMFohZdSl5ohd8l3IDzS9K3Y8WdNGsRjpOnq7jDQEsoMxr/s1600/b_a-lt-small.png" width="7" height="15" id="lt-arrow'+c+'"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM3MBbrcmvl8E1qGmy5Jn72tLNqwVTLZs06TjgCVCLVrt79eWE7FN1YUGUYqZMcJzzzXTNdVeDmgtDVPq6eLprlEiPwaaggAOBVvxKuUAXv6iIVcl-Cyj7yARjXd_CZdbtizfGLAzwJLck/s1600/b_a-rt-small.png" width="7" height="15" id="rt-arrow'+c+'">');if(e.showFullLinks){a(h).after('<div class="balinks" id="links'+c+'" style="position:relative"><span class="bflinks"><a id="showleft'+c+'" href="javascript:void(0)">Show only before</a></span><span class="bflinks"><a id="showright'+c+'" href="javascript:void(0)">Show only after</a></span></div>');a("#links"+c).width(n);a("#showleft"+c).css({position:"relative",left:"0px"}).click(function(){a("div:eq(2)",h).animate({width:n},200);a("#dragwrapper"+c).animate({left:n-a("#dragwrapper"+c).width()+"px"},200)});a("#showright"+c).css({position:"absolute",right:"0px"}).click(function(){a("div:eq(2)",h).animate({width:0},200);a("#dragwrapper"+c).animate({left:"0px"},200)})}var g=a("#dragwrapper"+c).offset();var k=g.left;var i=a("div:eq(2)",h).width();var f=a("div:eq(3)",h).width();a("#dragwrapper"+c).draggable({handle:a("#handle"+c),containment:h,axis:"x",drag:function(q,o){var s=a(this).offset();var r=s.left-k;a("div:eq(2)",h).width(i+r);a("#lt-arrow"+c).stop().animate({opacity:0},0);a("#rt-arrow"+c).stop().animate({opacity:0},0)}});if(e.animateIntro){a("div:eq(2)",h).width(n);a("#dragwrapper"+c).css("left",n-(a("#dragwrapper"+c).width()/2)+"px");setTimeout(function(){a("#dragwrapper"+c).css({opacity:1}).animate({left:(n/2)-(a("#dragwrapper"+c).width()/2)+"px"},e.introDuration,function(){a("#dragwrapper"+c).animate({opacity:0.25},1000)});a("div:eq(2)",h).width(n).animate({width:n/2+"px"},e.introDuration,function(){l()})},e.introDelay)}else{l()}function l(){a(h).hover(function(){a("#lt-arrow"+c).stop().css({"z-index":"20",position:"absolute",top:p/2-a("#lt-arrow"+c).height()/2+"px",left:parseInt(a("#dragwrapper"+c).css("left"))-10+"px"}).animate({opacity:1,left:parseInt(a("#lt-arrow"+c).css("left"))-6+"px"},200);a("#rt-arrow"+c).stop().css({position:"absolute",top:p/2-a("#lt-arrow"+c).height()/2+"px",left:parseInt(a("#dragwrapper"+c).css("left"))+10+"px"}).animate({opacity:1,left:parseInt(a("#rt-arrow"+c).css("left"))+6+"px"},200);a("#dragwrapper"+c).animate({opacity:1},200)},function(){a("#lt-arrow"+c).animate({opacity:0,left:parseInt(a("#lt-arrow"+c).css("left"))-6+"px"},350);a("#rt-arrow"+c).animate({opacity:0,left:parseInt(a("#rt-arrow"+c).css("left"))+6+"px"},350);a("#dragwrapper"+c).animate({opacity:0.25},350)});a(h).click(function(q){var r=q.pageX-this.offsetLeft;var o=n-r;a("#dragwrapper"+c).stop().animate({left:r-(a("#dragwrapper"+c).width()/2)+"px"},600);a("div:eq(2)",h).stop().animate({width:r+"px"},600);a("#lt-arrow"+c).stop().animate({opacity:0},50);a("#rt-arrow"+c).stop().animate({opacity:0},50)});a(h).one("mousemove",function(){a("#dragwrapper"+c).stop().animate({opacity:1},500)})}})}})})(jQuery);
//]]>
</script>
<script type='text/javascript'>
$(function(){
$(&#39;#beforeafter1&#39;).beforeAfter({showFullLinks : true});
});
</script>

Step 3. Click the "Save template" button to save your changes.

Note: if the above script doesn't work for you, add it above the </body> tag. Also, please see if you have added jQuery in your template (if you did so, then remove the line in green).

Step 3. To add it as a gadget - go to "Layout" and click on the "Add a gadget" link, then choose "HTML/Javascript" option. Paste this code inside the empty box:

<div id='beforeafter1'>
<div><img alt='before' src='URL of the first image' width='500' height='291'/></div>
<div><img alt='after' src='URL of the second image' width='500' height='291'/></div>
</div>

Add the URL of the first image that is the "Before" image, and the URL of the second image that should be the "After" image. Also, don't forget to specify the width and height of each picture, so that they work on all browsers (see the part in orange where you need to add the height and width of your images).

If you want to add more images, you will need to change the ID of the container. In my example, the container is called beforeafter1, so you will need to change it to beforeafter2 and so on, although, you can choose any name.

Then, add another line, like the blue one from below, in the first code that you added in step 2:

<script type='text/javascript'>
$(function(){
$(&#39;#beforeafter1&#39;).beforeAfter({showFullLinks : true});
$(&#39;#beforeafter2&#39;).beforeAfter({showFullLinks : true});
});
</script>

You can add as many before/after images as you want, as long as all containers have a different ID and the corresponding lines are added in the script.

Below each image /photo container are the "Show only Before" and "Show only after" links that once clicked, will display the "before" or "after" picture. If you want to hide these links, then just change "true" to "false" in the first code (step 2) and they will not be displayed anymore.

Note: if you see white space around the drag icons, then search for this code in your template:

   <Group description="Images" selector=".main-inner">
     <Variable name="image.background.color" description="Background Color" type="color" default="#ffffff" value="#ffffff"/>

And change the #ffffff value to transparent.

Credit: Catch my fame.

Rounded Corners and Shadows for Images using CSS

Here are some unique border styles that you can apply to blogger images by using the border-radius property and defining either all four corners simultaneously or applying the rounded border only to some of them.

One of the advantages of CSS3 is that we can apply rounded borders without complicating things too much and one of the options would be to use these edges or borders to images in the blog posts, to which we can also add some hover effects such as shading and rounded borders accompanied by transitions.

Note: if you need more info about how to add rounded corners on images, follow these links:
- CSS Basics. How to Apply Rounded Corners On Images #1
- CSS Basics. How to Apply Rounded Corners On Images #2

Below are a few examples of these borders and how the images behave when you hover over them.
If you want to use one of these styles, just copy the code below the image, then go to Template, click on the Edit HTML button and paste that code before ]]></b:skin> (CTRL + F to find it)

.post-body img {
border:0;
padding:0;
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
}
.post-body img:hover {
box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #000; /* Shadow */
border-radius: 50%; /* Rounded border */
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
cursor:pointer;
}

.post-body img {
background:#FFF; /* background color around the image */
padding:15px; /* space between border and image */
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
}
.post-body img:hover {
box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #000; /* Shadow */
border-radius: 0% 50%; /* Rounded border */
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
cursor:pointer;
}

.post-body img {
background:#FFF; /* the background color around the image */
padding:15px; /* The Space Between Border and Image */
border-radius: 50% 0; /* Rounded border */
box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #000; /* Shadow */
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
}
.post-body img:hover {
border-radius:0; /* This removes the border roundness (value 0) */
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
cursor:pointer;
}

.post-body img {
box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #000; /* Shadow */
border-radius: 50%; /* Rounded border */
border:0;
padding:0;
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
}
.post-body img:hover {
box-shadow: 0; /* With this we remove the shadow (value 0) */
border-radius: 0; /* This removes the border roundness (value 0) */
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
cursor:pointer;
}

.post-body img {
border-radius: 45% / 20%; /* Rounded border */
box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #000; /* Shadow */
padding:0;
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
}
.post-body img:hover {
border-radius: 0; /* This removes the roundness of border (value 0) */
-moz-transition: all 1s;
-webkit-transition: all 1s;
-o-transition: all 1s;
cursor:pointer;
}

So these effects will apply to all images uploaded to your Blogger posts. But if you want to apply them only on certain pictures then change .post-body img with .rounded  and .post-body img:hover with .rounded:hoverThen add the rounded class selector in the image's code:

<img class="rounded" src="Image URL"/>

These are just some examples, however, you can modify them anytime by adding or deleting more CSS styles, it depends on everybody's tastes or needs. But as you have seen, we can make the images look way more attractive and this has been done only with CSS ;)

Upload images and get the URL of the image

As each day there are lots of new users joining the world of blogging, it's good to know about some basic topics that would raise some recurring questions such as how we could get the URL of an image?

There are many both free as well as paid web hosting services on the web where we can host images, but since we use Blogger, there is nothing better than using the same hosting service that Google gives us, which is Picasa.

How to Upload Images in Blogger & Get Image URL

The fastest way to upload an image is through the Blogger post editor: from your Blogger Dashboard, go to your blog and click the New post button. Once the post editor opens, go to the HTML tab and click the image icon.

When the pop-up window appears, click the Choose files button, browse for your image(s), double click or click Open and hit Add selected.

After the image has been uploaded, you will see the HTML code of the image in the post editor as in the screenshot below.

That code contains the URL of your photo. The two URLs (web addresses) that you will see, would look something similar to this:

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBJ84-_qZJZfgZHLf0brXP8zGObWWSc_ZhKr1PcRBFdN4EcInS-rqyU8pTtuIn9sGsC8_qaBkMTXsICQ0V1VtkfOSGpo6zDiEfx7EAIbzuikL_JROYfmuLS731YUcKftO_rJw_O26WapSh/s1600/Bliss-Windows-XP.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBJ84-_qZJZfgZHLf0brXP8zGObWWSc_ZhKr1PcRBFdN4EcInS-rqyU8pTtuIn9sGsC8_qaBkMTXsICQ0V1VtkfOSGpo6zDiEfx7EAIbzuikL_JROYfmuLS731YUcKftO_rJw_O26WapSh/s320/Bliss-Windows-XP.png" /></a>

The first is the URL of the image that you need to copy. It's not required to publish this post where you uploaded the photo; you might as well leave it as Draft or delete it. The image will be saved anyway on PicasaWeb (unless when you removed the draft, you have also selected the option to remove the image).

How to Upload Photos to Picasa and get Image URL

Now that you know how to upload an image through Blogger, you can also upload image directly from Picasa:

Just login to PicasaWeb, select the album where you want to host the image, and click Add photos.

Select the image from a location on your computer and upload it.

After it has been uploaded, click OK. Now you will see the thumbnail, along with other photos if there are more.

To get the URL of the image from Picasa, click the image to open in full size, then right click on the picture and select the following option depending on the browser you are using:

For Google Chrome > select Copy Image URL:

If you are using Mozilla Firefox  > select Copy Image Location:

For Opera > select Copy Image URL:

For Safari > select Copy Image Address:

If you are using Internet Explorer (I hope not) > first select Properties, a window will open and there you will find the Address section from where you can select the URL of the image. Just copy it:

After you have selected any of these options, you'll have the URL of the image copied to the clipboard. It's that easy!

Now that you know how to upload images and get the URL, it's highly recommended to Optimize Images for Better SEO.

Remember that all images you upload on Blogger, are stored in your Picasa account. So, if you find an image previously uploaded on your blog, just go to your Picasa account, select the album containing the name of your blog and find the picture you need. The method to get the URL of the image is the same as explained above.

Possibly the most simple jQuery Slider

Do you have jQuery in your site or blog and space to insert 10 lines of code? If the answer is yes, and you want to have an automatic slideshow, this is the simplest code I've seen so far. So, having a succession of images added inside a box with a common general container, would give this result:

Related: Image Slider using only CSS

How to add a Simple jQuery Slider to Blogger

Step 1. Adding the JavaScript

If you don't have jQuery, then you should add this line just above the </head> tag to make the slideshow work:

<script src='http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8/jquery.min.js' type='text/javascript'/>

Where the </head> tag can be found? Go to Template > Edit HTML > click anywhere inside the code area and press the CTRL + F keys. Inside the search box, type this tag and hit Enter to find it:

</head>

Once confident that you have the library in your template, let's add the below script as well, which will make the set of images load as a slider:

<script type="text/javascript">//<![CDATA[
$(function(){
    $('#slider div:gt(0)').hide();
    setInterval(function(){
      $('#slider div:first-child').fadeOut(0)
         .next('div').fadeIn(1000)
         .end().appendTo('#slider');}, 4000);
});
//]]></script>

Finally, save the changes by clicking the "Save Template" button. And now, that we finished adding the scripts, let's add the images to where we want to show...

2. Create/Add the HTML for the Slider

After implementing the above scripts in the template (although, we could add them directly into a gadget, on a page or even inside the post HTML), we will create the slider like the one above.

Use the following HTML structure to show the image slider:

<div id="slider">
    <div><img src="IMAGE_URL"/></div>
    <div><img src="IMAGE_URL"/></div>
    <div><img src="IMAGE_URL"/></div>
</div>

- as a gadget: go to Layout, click "Add a gadget" and choose the "HTML/JavaScript" option
- inside a post/page: create a new post and paste the code inside the HTML box.

So this is all you need. For me, it is quite lightweight and efficient, much more than most libraries that are used nowadays - perhaps, too often.

jQuery Slider Settings

The last three numbers of this slider will allow us to adjust some things. All of them are expressed in milliseconds (4000 = 4 seconds):

fadeOut(0): Time for the outgoing image
fadeIn(1000): Time for the next image
('#slider');},4000): Time spent in each image

How it Works

$('#slider div:gt(0)').hide();
With gt(x) we select all the divs from the number (x). In this case, 0 is the first, so what this line does is to hide (hide()) all the boxes - except the first, that will be the image visible initially.

setInterval(function(){ [what we will do] }, 4000);
We need to reiterate a few things from time to time and we can accomplish this with setInterval - the delay time between each set.

$('#slider div:first-child').fadeOut(0)
Within each of these intervals, we remove (fadeOut) the first box (div:first-child) with a fade out effect, so that images are out of visibility...

.next('div').fadeIn(1000)
...and make the following box (next) to appear gradually (fadeIn).

.end().appendTo('#slider');
Finally, this will show the first image and will move it to the end (appendTo) of the "list".

end() resets the number of elements that we move forward with next(). Thus, the first child made earlier to disappear, is the one that is sent down the stack, and not the image that is currently visible.

3. Customizing the Slider

Even though, we don't need CSS to make the slider work, we can still change its look to display images in different sizes, include captions, or even improve the transition. Here are some ideas:

Text 1

Text 2

Text 3

This is a long text 4

In the above example, we limited the size of the container and prevented the overflow of larger images. Finally, we added rounded borders and centered the slider.

#slider {
overflow: hidden;
width: 500px;
height: 300px;
border:3px solid #242424;
border-radius: 40px;
margin: 0 auto;
padding: 0;
position: relative;
}

If we would have made the parent box of the images positioned absolutely, they would have overlapped each other. For this reason, we have set the "position" of the container to "relative".

As for the images, we will set the width to 100% to make them fill the entire container and the min-height to 300px, to fill up all the available height of the parent box, so that there will be no empty space around them.

#slider > div {
position:absolute;
top:0;
left:0;
}
#slider img {
width:100%;
min-height:300px;
margin:0;
padding:0;
border:0;
}

To add more elements like a text or caption, we will enclose the text in span tags and will set the position to "absolute". And to make the text appear at the bottom of the image, we will use the bottom property:

#slider span {
position: absolute;
bottom: 17px;
display: block;
width: 100%;
margin:0;
padding: 15px 0;
color: #fff;
background: #242424;
font-size: 18px;
line-height:18px;
text-align:center;
}

If you want change the look of this slider - go to Template, hit the Customize button and click on the Advanced > Add CSS tab and paste the above CSS codes inside the empty box.

The HTML markup for this last example, would look like this:

<div id="slider">
<div><a href="Link_URL1"><img src="Image_URL1" /></a><span>TEXT1</span></div>
<div><a href="Link_URL2"><img src="Image_URL2" /></a><span>TEXT2</span></div>
<div><a href="Link_URL3"><img src="Image_URL3" /></a><span>TEXT3</span></div>
</div>

Please note that if you add it inside the post's HTML, don't switch back to the compose tab, as this might remove the span tags of the image captions and the text might not be displayed properly.

Multi Hover Effect On Blogger Images Using Pure CSS

Today I'm going to show you how to add an amazing mouseover effect for Blogger images using only CSS, in which moving your mouse over an image from different directions (from above, from below, etc) will cause an overlay transitioned in from the same vector. This trick will change not only the images appearance when moving mouse over them, but will also allow you to add inside a text with a description.

You can see the effect on this image below: try moving your mouse from the left, right, and above.

hover right hover top hover left hover bottom

Adding Hover Effect From Different Directions on Blogger Images

First thing to do is to add the CSS style to our Template:

Step 1. From Blogger Dashboard, go to Template and press the Edit HTML button

Step 2. Search for the </head> tag - to find it, click anywhere inside the code area, press CTRL + F keys and type it in the search box.

Step 3. After you found it, add the following style just above it: 

<style>
  /* The container and the image */
  div.multi-hover {
    overflow: hidden;
    position: relative;
    vertical-align: middle;
    width: 100%;
    height: 358px;
    line-height: 358px;
  }
  div.multi-hover img {width: 100%;}

/* The texts that, by default, are hidden */
  div.multi-hover span {
    color: #FFF;
    font-size: 32px;
    font-weight: bold;
    height: 100%;
    opacity: 0;
    position: absolute;
    text-align: center;
    transition: all 0.3s linear 0s;
    width: 100%;
  }

/* And this is what will generate the effect */
  div.multi-hover span:nth-child(1) { /* right */
    background: none repeat scroll 0 0 rgba(255, 189, 36, 0.6);
    left: 90%;
    top: 0;
  }
  div.multi-hover span:nth-child(2) { /* top */
    background: none repeat scroll 0 0 rgba(106, 170, 255, 0.6);
    left: 0;
    top: -80%;
  }
  div.multi-hover span:nth-child(3) { /* left */
    background: none repeat scroll 0 0 rgba(204, 87, 166, 0.6);
    left: -90%;
    top: 0;
  }
  div.multi-hover span:nth-child(4) { /* bottom */
    background: none repeat scroll 0 0  rgba(97, 181, 115, 0.6);
    left: 0;
    top: 80%;
  }

  div.multi-hover span:hover {opacity: 1;}
  div.multi-hover span:nth-child(2n+1):hover {left: 0;}
  div.multi-hover span:nth-child(2n):hover {top: 0;}

</style>

Step 4. Save the Template

Now we are going to add the HTML that is nothing but a DIV where we included four SPAN tags with texts and an image:

Step 5. Choose Posts, create a New Post, click on the HTML tab (1) and paste this code inside the empty box:

<div class=multi-hover>
  <span>hover right</span>
  <span>hover top</span>
  <span>hover left</span>
  <span>hover bottom</span>
  <img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxORSuXE790t1qJj3iGeH0AB5rMaoZNe2Emo6mUBQOYRCz0aWS1qaAIfAvVP4_kCRQSnvQnndlIRlz42DnEhOPq19NI3Vi63TKPyu28NBfTqSu1PSDHoFh4kEPRkUfJ_BcoPODMCk4FYI/s1600/flowers">
</div>

Add your own text/description to "hover right", "hover top", "hover left" and "hover bottom" (2) and replace the url in blue with the image URL (3) where you want to apply the effect.
Important! Do not click on the Compose tab, otherwise the changes will be lost.

Step 6. After you finished editing your post, click Publish (4)

And that's it... enjoy! :)

CSS Basics. How to Apply Rounded Corners On Images #2

In the previous post I have mentioned that we will learn about how to create rounded images using CSS, without needing to edit them one by one using a program. Now that we have seen the basics of CSS, let's try to apply it on some pictures.

What we will do in this tutorial is to upload an image (HTML) and then add some rules in the stylesheet that will transform the outer shape to look like a circle... or, at least, to appear round. This will depend on the proportions of that picture we will use.

In fact, we can apply this effect to any picture, to a specific part of our blog or to all the pictures found in our blog. This depends on your tastes.

Marking up HTML

Obviously, the first thing we need to do in order to set a rounded border around an image is to get a picture and upload it to get the html structure. The code could be a little bit more complicated, but an image is built within the img tag, which basically, looks like this:

<img src="image_URL"/>

Screenshot:

Adding this code inside the HTML of the post with the url of our image - instead of the text in blue - we will be able to display it like this image on the left.

Usually, it might also contain an alt text, and sometimes, may have some predetermined dimensions (with a specific width and/or height). When we upload an image using the Blogger post editor, the code will also have a link pointing to the original image.

But if we want to modify this image using CSS, we need to add a class selector. We can add it in two ways: within the img tag or in a parent box. The name that I have chosen for the image selector is roundedcorners, however, you can add any name you want:

<img class="roundedcorners" src="image_URL"/>

<div class="roundedcorners">
<img src="image_URL"/>
</div>

Applying style to all homogeneous elements

But that selector alone won't do anything special. It needs to be linked to a style rule telling what to do with it. The same if when we add just classes, if these are not defined within the CSS, the appearance of a picture (or a certain element) will not change.

To change the shape of the all the pictures on our blog, this is what we should add to our CSS:

img {
border: 2px solid #BADA55;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border-radius: 1000px;
-moz-border-radius: 1000px;
}

And how this translates to your browser?

Search for images by name tag (img) and apply the following style:

• a solid green border of 2 pixels
• set the margins (space outside the border) and padding (space inside the border) to zero
• apply the rounded corner look to all the four corners

Now that we have this rule in our style sheet itself, we'll be able to see the picture as we want - take a look at the image on the right.

To declare a property correctly, we need to know what it does and how to write it - details which could be found all over the internet, although W3C is the authority in this.

For instance, the border-radius property initially requires four (4) values reading from left to right, which represent the roundness of the upper-left, upper-right, lower-right and lower-left corner. If you add a single value, it will make all the four corners to be equal with that value.

It is important to mention that when the value of the border exceeds the dimensions of the container, this border will create a circle.

How to apply the same style on the elements of the same container

Sometimes, we don't want all the images on our blog to be round, but only the ones that we choose, otherwise adding the style above within the head tag will make all the pictures taking this shape. Before, we used an HTML tag (img) and not a selector and, for this reason, the style will affect all our images.
To avoid this, we can do one of the things we saw at the beginning of this post and that was to place the image inside a div with the roundedcorners class. This way, only the images within the container with that class will be affected by the rule that will make them round.

<div class="roundedcorners"><img src="image_URL"/></div>

But the rule then should not affect the img tag directly, but the roundedcorners selector. In this case, you should write it like this:

.roundedcorners img {
border: 2px solid #BADA55;
....
}

This implies that this style applies only to images that are within the container with the roundedcorners class.

Final words

To end this tutorial on creating pictures with rounded borders, keep in mind that if these are not square, instead of becoming circular, they will look oval:

To fix this we should add the width and height with the same measure (value in pixels) to force the image cropping and to make it appear perfectly circular. That was all!

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CSS Basics. How to Apply Rounded Corners On Images #1

This tutorial will explain how to change the outside border of any image by using some simple CSS rules to make it round, but this is so easy doing this, that I'm finally going to make this post for other purposes.

The trick today that I'm going to publish in two parts is to help you to understand, at least, a little of what CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is.

For those who would like to learn more, please take a look at this link and for those who really want to learn thoroughly, I recommend to visit this site.

Introduction and terminology

Style sheets aim to help sort out what is the structure of a website and which is its format or appearance. So, the CSS box model is, basically, a box that wraps around HTML elements, and determines how those boxes are presented in terms of colors, fonts, width, backgrounds etc.

The advantage is that, anytime we decide to change something, we don't have to change all the pages one by one, but simply, change the properties from the style sheet and these modifications will automatically apply in all the pages.

The style sheet is a set of rules made of selectors and declarations. The selector is to be used as a nickname or name of what you want to configure from the style sheet and apply to the HTML, and declarations are properties to which we add the desired values ​​(more information on CSS syntax)

Adding the CSS selector

If we add, for example, the code above in our style sheet, we might not see anything particular happening in our website. As I have mentioned above, the selector relates to the HTML and CSS so, if we want a box to take these values ​​for width, background color, border and font size, we need to include the selector within the HTML of a page element, like this:

<div class="SelectorName">Text here</div>

Here we added a rule telling the browser to interpret that this box has to be of a certain type or class. This class or selector could have some specific properties and values ​​defined in the style sheet, as you can see in the image above.

Now let's see how this will change the look of the box, while all others that don't have the SelectorName  name will follow the standard appearance.

Basically, when we add a rule in a style sheet, or modify an existing one, what happens is that all boxes marked with that selector will change their appearance according to the properties and values that we have defined in the style sheet.


Where to add the CSS style

This style can be added in external CSS files - create the CSS file with all the rules, upload it on a hosting site and get the URL of the file. To make use of it, include the following line in the header of your template. For Blogger, you can add it between <head> and <b:skin><![CDATA[/*:

<link href="syle.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

Note: replace the text in blue with the url of the CSS file.

You can also add the style directly in the HTML of the template by adding the CSS between the style tags:

<style>
.SelectorName {
background-color: #EAEAEA;
border: 1px solid #444444;
width: 200px;
font-size: 12px;
}
</style>

This can be added in the HTML of a page element as well. In this case, you don't need to add any selector to indicate where the CSS style is:

<div style="background-color: #EAEAEA; border: 1px solid #444444; width: 200px; font-size: 12px;">Text here</div>

In Blogger, the rules are between the <b:skin><![CDATA[/* and ]]></b:skin> skin tags. If we access the HTML of our template, we will find a bunch of codes in between these tags, which is actually the CSS styling that defines the appearance of our blog.

For those who don't want to touch the template code, we can add the CSS directly by going to the Blogger Template designer > Advanced > Add CSS.

That's enough for today. In the next tutorial we'll get to know how to add rounded corners to our images using CSS -> how to set a rounded borders around an image using CSS.