The Creative Image widget in The Plus Addons for Elementor takes a single image and adds motion and shape to it — a scroll reveal, a custom mask, a parallax drift, a 3D tilt on hover, or a GSAP animation you design yourself.
This page walks through every section of the widget and says what each control actually does on the published page, so you can pick the one effect you need instead of switching them all on.
Requirement – This widget is a part of The Plus Addons for Elementor Pro, make sure it’s installed & activated to enjoy all its powers.
Before You Start
- Edition: Pro — Creative Image is only in The Plus Addons for Elementor Pro. With the Pro plugin switched off the widget is not in the editor at all, and a page that already uses it shows nothing where the widget was.
- Widget to enable: Creative Image, switched on under The Plus Addons > Widgets (in the Advanced group there). In the Elementor panel it appears under Plus Advanced.
- You need an image: pick one in Choose Image first. With nothing chosen the widget renders the plugin’s own grey placeholder, so none of the effects below will look like anything.
Watch It First
Turn the Widget On
- Go to The Plus Addons > Widgets in the WordPress dashboard.
- Search for Creative Image.
- Switch its toggle on. The card carries a PRO badge, because the widget ships only in the Pro plugin.
Then edit a page with Elementor and drag Creative Image from the Plus Advanced group in the panel on to the canvas.
Content
Image Style is the first decision, and it changes which other controls you get:
| Image Style | What it does | What it unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| Creative Image (default) | Renders the picture as a normal image you can then decorate. | Mask Image Shape, Super Parallax and Max Width Image |
| Scroll Reveal Image | Wipes a coloured overlay off the image as it scrolls into view. | Animated Background Color and Animation Direction |
Above them sits Import Presets, which drops a ready-made design into the widget for you to edit.
The rest of the Content section applies to both styles unless noted:
- Choose Image — the picture itself. The image’s own alt text is reused on the page, so fill it in on the media item.
- Image Resolution — which registered size WordPress serves. Default Full.
- Image Alignment — left, centre or right, set per device.
- Link to — wraps the image in a link. The external and nofollow switches in the field are honoured on the page.
- Max Width Image — caps the rendered width, per device. Creative Image style only.
Image Animation
A GSAP animation for the image, separate from Elementor’s own entrance animations. Switch Enable Animation on, then choose Basic to build the movement here, or Global to reuse an animation you saved once in Site Settings.
This section has a page of its own: How to Add Image Animation in the Creative Image Widget.
Style > Style Image
Every effect lives in one section, each behind its own switch. They are independent, and switching on more than one at a time is usually a mistake.
| Switch | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Scroll Image | Crops a tall image into a fixed-height box and pans it from top to bottom while the pointer is over it. Replaces the image with a background, so there is no img left on the page. | Hide |
| Mask Image Shape | Cuts the image to the shape of a PNG you supply. Creative Image style only. | Hide |
| Super Parallax | Slides a second copy of the image sideways as the page scrolls. Creative Image style only. | Hide |
| Mouse Move Parallax | Shifts the image as the pointer moves across it, at the speeds set in Parallax Options. | off |
| Magic Scroll | Moves the image between an Initial and a Final position as it scrolls. Out of the box it travels 50 px upwards. | off |
| Tilt 3D Parallax | Tips the image towards the pointer on hover. Defaults: Max 20, Scale 1.1, Speed 400, Transform Perspective 400. | off |
| Overlay Special Effect | Sweeps two colours across the image as it enters the viewport. Defaults #313131 and #ff214f. | off |
| Border | Border style, width and colour, plus Border Radius, Box Shadow and CSS Filters on separate Normal and Hover tabs. | Hide |
| Responsive Visibility | Hides the widget on desktop, tablet or mobile. | Hide |
Scroll Image, Mask Image Shape and Super Parallax each have a page of their own: scroll on hover, image masking and parallax on scroll.
Border, Shadow and Filters
Switch Border on to get Border Style and Border Width, then use the Normal and Hover tabs underneath for Border Color, Border Radius, Box Shadow and CSS Filters (Blur, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Hue).
Border Radius sits on the tabs rather than next to Border Width, so it applies whether or not the border itself is switched on.
Responsive Visibility
Switch Responsive Visibility on and you get a Desktop, Tablet and Mobile toggle. Turning one off hides the whole widget on that size.
These three toggles use their own fixed widths — desktop is 991 px and up, tablet is 601 px to 990 px, mobile is 600 px and below. They do not follow the breakpoints you set in Elementor.
How It Behaves
- The image’s alt text comes from the media library item, not from the widget. When the image is linked, that same text becomes the link’s accessible name.
- With no image chosen the widget still renders something — the plugin’s grey placeholder graphic, using the page title as its alt text.
- In Scroll Reveal Image the picture is painted as a background at full size, so Image Resolution changes nothing you can see, and Max Width Image is ignored.
- On Scroll View Animation (further down the Style tab) and the Plus Extras section on the Advanced tab are shared across The Plus Addons widgets and work here as they do everywhere else.
Limitations
- The effects do not stack cleanly. Scroll Image replaces the image with a background element, which means Image Animation has nothing to animate and simply does nothing when both are on.
- Mask Image Shape and Super Parallax are silently ignored in Scroll Reveal Image. The switches are hidden in that style, but if you set them first and change the style afterwards, the settings stay stored and have no effect.
- There is no Tooltip or Continuous Animation control in this widget. Older versions had them and older screenshots still show them.
- Responsive Visibility ignores your Elementor breakpoints and uses the fixed widths above.
Troubleshooting
The canvas shows a grey grid instead of my picture
No image is selected. Open Choose Image and pick one.
Changing Image Resolution does nothing
Check Image Style. In Scroll Reveal Image the full-size file is always used. Switch to Creative Image if you need a smaller file.
Max Width Image has no effect
Same cause: the control only applies to the Creative Image style.
The widget vanished on tablet
Responsive Visibility counts 601–990 px as tablet. A window just under 991 px is tablet to this widget even if Elementor calls it desktop.
