django-cropduster is an image uploading and cropping tool for Django. Integrates into the Django admin with an image file field, and then size sets are created to correspond with the thumbnails to be created. On image upload, it prompts to define a crop area and zoom for each aspect ratio from the size set. Includes template tag to display images on the front end, and allows to delay thumbnail creation until first request in template for rarely used thumbnails.

The recommended way to install from source is with pip:

$ pip install -e git+git://github.com/theatlantic/django-cropduster.git#egg=django-cropduster

If the source is already checked out, use setuptools:

$ python setup.py install

django-cropduster requires the Python Imaging Library (PIL needs to be linked with libjpeg and libpng in order to support JPG and PNG files).

In models.py, define a field as a Cropduster image field:

from cropduster.models import CropDusterField, Image as CropDusterImage

class MyModel(models.Model):
    image = CropDusterField(CropDusterImage)

Add Cropduster to the list of installed apps in the settings file:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    # ...
    'cropduster',
    # ...
)

Then, run syncdb and/or a South migration to create the database tables.

You can create the set of image sizes for use with your app in the Django admin under Size Sets. Select "Crop on request" for images that should not be created until they are first requested. "Auto size" means that the system will not ask for a crop to be defined to create the thumbnail, but will simply be created automatically (cropping from 0x0 to the image size, and then sizing down).

In the admin.py for your app, override the default widget for that field, and define which size set to use by the handle of the size set:

from cropduster.widgets import AdminCropdusterWidget
from cropduster.models import CropDusterField

class MyModelAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    formfield_overrides = {
        CropDusterField: {"widget": AdminCropdusterWidget("size-set-handle")}
    }