Reply To: Setting a default for an image field.

• bret_miller

• May 1, 2025 at 4:44 am

So I will answer my own question. For image and taxonomy fields, the way to set a default value is programmatically using add_filter for acf/load_value. In both cases, the filter function returns an ID value, the ID of the image or the ID of the term.

function gci_acf_load_value_graphic($value, $postid, $field) {
	$retval = $value;
	// We only do this for fields named "graphic".
	if ($field['_name'] != 'graphic') {
		return($retval);
	}

	$flds = ['fb1_graphic', 'fb2_graphic', 'fb3_graphic', 'fb4_graphic'];
	if (in_array($field['name'], $flds)) {
		if (!$value) {
			$img = gci_acf_get_default_graphic($field['name']);
			$retval = $img['ID'];
		}
	}
	return($retval);
}
add_filter('acf/load_value/type=image', 'gci_acf_load_value_graphic', 11, 3);