Display image (if present) and/or name for the author of a post, or for all authors on the blog. Use <?php c2c_the_author_image(); ?> as a replacement for <?php the_author() ?> or <?php get_avatar(); ?> in index.php (and/or any other post templates) to display an image for a post’s author (inside “t
PricingFree downloadThe WordPress.org download is free. Pro versions, add-ons or external services may cost extra.
CompatibilityRequires WordPress 3.1.
SourceWordPress plugins · Oct 20, 2026
01 / Source details
About this tool.
Display image (if present) and/or name for the author of a post, or for all authors on the blog.
Use <?php c2c_the_author_image(); ?> as a replacement for <?php the_author() ?> or <?php get_avatar(); ?> in index.php (and/or any other post templates) to display an image for a post’s author (inside “the loop”)
Use <?php c2c_wp_list_authors_images(); ?> as a replacement for <?php wp_list_authors(); ?> in the sidebar section of your site to list all authors for the blog using an image and/or text.
The plugin also provides a simple widget for listing authors.
Process by which the image is located and/or text used:
01If a post has an ‘author_image’ custom field defined, the plugin checks if the value is the valid name of an image in the defined image directory. If not, it appends each of the defined image extensions, in turn, to the custom field’s value, then checks if an image can be found.
02If no image has been found yet, it looks in the image directory for a file with a name that is the author’s login name with a file extension matching one of the ones defined in image extensions.
03If no image has been found yet, it looks in the image directory for a file with a name that is the author’s ID with a file extension matching one of the ones defined in image extensions.
04If no image has been found yet and Gravatar support is enabled, it then asks Gravatar for the avatar associated with the author (based on author’s email address).
05If no image has been found yet and a blank/generic image has been defined, then the blank image is used as the author’s avatar.
06If an image has been found and the “Show author name as well?” setting is true, or if no author image has been found and “Show author name if image is found?” setting is true, then the author’s name is appended/used.
Additional notes:
The plugins admin options page allows you to control if the author’s name should appear alongside the author image or not, if the author name should be shown in the event no author image could be found, the image directory, the support image extensions, and if and what you want the author image to link to.
Images output by c2c_the_author_image() are defined with class=”author_image” for stylesheet manipulation
Images output by c2c_wp_list_authors_images() are defined with class=”list_author_image” for stylesheet manipulation
Tip:: You can take advantage of the $image_dir argument to display different author images under different contexts, i.e. locate your images in different directories ‘wp-content/images/authors/small/’ and ‘wp-content/images/authors/large/’ and decide on context where to get the image(s) from.
The plugin provides three optional template tags for use in your theme templates.
Functions
function c2c_get_author_image( $args = array() ) Gets the image and/or name for an author.
function c2c_the_author_image( $before = '', $after = '', $image_dir = '', $width = '', $height = '' ) A drop-in replacement for WordPress’s the_author() , allowing the author for the post to have an image displayed in lieu of the name (if an image can be found).
function c2c_wp_list_authors_images( $args = '' ) A drop-in replacement for WordPress’s wp_list_authors() , allowing all authors for a blog to be listed with an image (if present).
This displays the image associated with a post’s categories.
Arguments
$before Optional argument. The text and/or HTML to appear before the author image/text, if any such text would be returned.
$after Optional argument. The text and/or HTML to appear after the author image/text, if any such text would be returned.
$image_dir Optional argument. The directory, relative to the root of your blog, in which to find the author images. If not set, it defaults to the value configured via the plugin’s admin options page.
$width Optional argument. The forced width of the image (will cause browser to resize if image is of different width). Leave blank to retain image’s original width (or for the width to be scaled in proportion to a specified height). It is recommended that images exist at the desired size.
$height Optional argument. The forced height of the image (will cause browser to resize if image is of different height). Leave blank to retain image’s original height (or for the height to be scaled in proportion to a specified width). It is recommended that images exist at the desired size.
$author_id Optional argument. The id of the author. If null, then gets the author for the current post. Default is null.
$args (as used in c2c_get_author_image() ) Optional argument. An array of configuration options. author_id : default of current post author; the id of the author to get the image for
before : default of ”; text to show before each author
after : default of ”; text to show after each author
image_dir : default of ”; directory containing author images, relative to wp-content directory
width : default of ”; width to display image
height : default of ”; height to display image
show_name : default of ” which means it’ll abide by the plugin’s setting value; should the name of the author be shown in addition to the image?
show_fullname : default of false; should the user’s first and last name be shown instead of the author’s configured display name? (be sure to set ‘show_name’ to true if you want the name to appear in the first place)
show_name_if_no_image : default of ” which means it’ll abide by the plugin’s setting value; should the author’s name be shown if the author doesn’t have an image?
class : default of ”; array or string of classes to apply to author image tag
use_gravatar : default of plugin settings; should Gravatar be consulted for an author image if no local image for the author was found?
$args (as used in c2c_wp_list_authors_images ) Optional argument. An array of configuration options. All but the last two match up with the supported arguments of the wp_list_authors() function.
optioncount : default of false;
exclude_admin : default of true; should the admin user be excluded from the listing?
hide_empty : default of true; should authors who have not made any posts be excluded from the listings?
feed : default of ”
feed_image : default of ”
echo : default of true; should the listing be echoed to the page?
show_name : default of ” which means it’ll abide by the plugin’s setting value; should the name of the author be shown in addition to the image?
show_fullname : default of false; should the user’s first and last name be shown instead of the author’s configured display name? (be sure to set ‘show_name’ to true if you want the name to appear in the first place)
show_name_if_no_image : default of '' which means it’ll abide by the plugin’s setting value; should the author’s name be shown if the author doesn’t have an image?
before : default of ”; text to show before each author
after : default of ”; text to show after each author
image_dir : default of ”; directory containing author images, relative to wp-content directory
width : default of ”; width to display image
height : default of ”; height to display image
class : default of ”; array or string of classes to apply to author image tag
use_gravatar : default of plugin settings; should Gravatar be consulted for an author image if no local image for the author was found?
Examples
Show the author image for the current post’s author (must be “in the loop”)
Get the author image from a different directory when on a post’s permalink page (for instance, show a larger image on the permalink page)
Change some default options when listing authors
false, ‘show_name_if_no_image’ => true)); ?>
Filters
The plugin exposes two filters and two actions for hooking. Typically, customizations utilizing these hooks would be put into your active theme’s functions.php file, or used by another plugin.
c2c_get_author_image (filter)
The ‘c2c_get_author_image’ hook allows you to use an alternative approach to safely invoke c2c_get_author_image() in such a way that if the plugin were deactivated or deleted, then your calls to the function won’t cause errors in your site.
The ‘c2c_get_the_author_image’ hook allows you to use an alternative approach to safely invoke c2c_get_the_author_image() in such a way that if the plugin were deactivated or deleted, then your calls to the function won’t cause errors in your site.
The ‘c2c_the_author_image’ hook allows you to use an alternative approach to safely invoke c2c_the_author_image() in such a way that if the plugin were deactivated or deleted, then your calls to the function won’t cause errors in your site.
The ‘c2c_wp_list_authors_images’ hook allows you to use an alternative approach to safely invoke c2c_wp_list_authors_images() in such a way that if the plugin were deactivated or deleted, then your calls to the function won’t cause errors in your site.
A screenshot of the plugin's admin options page.A screenshot of the plugin's widget configuration.
02 / Source details
Getting started.
01Whether installing or updating, whether this plugin or any other, it is always advisable to back-up your data before starting
02Unzip author-images.zip inside the /wp-content/plugins/ directory (or install via the built-in WordPress plugin installer)
03Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ admin menu in WordPress
04Go to the Users -> Author Images admin options page. Optionally customize the options.
05Create the directory(s) that will contain author image(s) (path must be relative to wp-content/ directory) (by default this would be /wp-content/images/authors/)
06Put images into the specified image directory, using the author login name or the author ID as the filename, with whatever extension you plan to support, i.e. admin.gif or 1.gif
07(optional) Use the provided “Author Image(s)” widget, if so inclined.
08(optional) Modify your index.php and/or other template files to include calls to <?php c2c_the_author_image(); ?> and/or . (Read the rest of these notes for more info.)
09(optional) Add the custom field ‘author_image’ to posts to explicitly define an image for the author for just that post. Otherwise, the plugin will proceed to attempt to find the author image.
10(optional) Add the class “author_image” to your CSS file to control the display of the image located by c2c_the_author_image() , and/or add the class “list_author_image” to your CSS file to control the display of the images listed by c2c_wp_list_authors_images() .
03 / Source details
Frequently asked questions.
Where do I go to upload the author images?
Currently this plugin does not facilitate the uploading of images. It assumes you’ve already managed to get the author images onto your server into the appropriate directories.
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