Original image should be visible in media-library after image-processing

[arkonisus]

After editing an image in the library, e.g. after cropping and saving the resulting image will be shown in the library. At this time the original-image was not deleted or overwritten, because it could be used before the processing.

It would be very fine if this original-image appears again:

1. someone could use the whole (uncropped) version again.
2. you are not able to delete this image completely from the server without using FTP

[kirasong]

Howdy! Thanks for reporting/opening the ticket.

WordPress does currently duplicate a size in the media gallery when it happens for purpose built sizes (header/logo), since presumably we know it’s meant to be a new use case entirely, but not for images in the general case. This behaviour tends to, in my opinion, clutter the gallery, and make it difficult to find which image you are actually looking for.

That said, I definitely agree that we need a better way of handling multiple versions of "master" images in core.

This is not well handled by the UI/UX of the media gallery, nor by the code that underpins it. Ideally, there would be a simple way to see one image in the gallery, and then use the most appropriate version of it, whether manually, or automatically.

As to your second point, the reason it currently does not do this is if you have previous links to those images in your content, we don't want to delete the images and break them. A partial workaround for this behavior can be found in the IMAGE_EDIT_OVERWRITE define (​written about by @bradt here).