Does :before not work on img elements?

I'm trying to use the :before selector to place an image over another image, but I'm finding that it simply doesn't work to place an image before an img element, only some other element. Specifically, my styles are:

.container
{
   position: relative;
   display: block;
}

.overlay:before
{
    content: url(images/[someimage].png);
    position: absolute;
    left:-20px;
    top: -20px;
}

and I find that this works fine:

<a href="[url]" class="container">
  <span class="overlay"/>
  <img width="200" src="[url]"/>
</a>

but this does not:

<a href="[url]" class="container">
  <img width="200" src="[url]" class="overlay"/>
</a>

I can use a div or p element instead of that span, and the browser correctly overlays my image over the image in the img element, but if I apply the overlay class to the img itself, it doesn't work.

I'd like to get this working because that extra span offends me, but more importantly, I've got about 100 blog posts that I'd like to modify, and I can do this in one go if I could just modify the stylesheet, but if I have to go back and add an extra span element in between the a and img elements, this will be a lot more work.

Unfortunately, most browsers do not support using :after or :before on img tags.

http://lildude.co.uk/after-css-property-for-img-tag

However, it IS possible for you to accomplish what you need with JavaScript/jQuery. Check out this fiddle:

http://jsfiddle.net/xixonia/ahnGT/

$(function() {
    
    $('.target').after('<img src="..." />');
    
});

Edit:

For the reason why this isn't supported, check out coreyward's answer.

The before and after pseudo-selectors don't insert HTML elements — they insert text before or after the existing content of the targeted element. Because image elements don't contain text or have descendants, neither img:before or img:after will do you any good. This is also the case for elements like <br> and <hr> for the same reason.

I found a way to make this work in pure css:

The I'm just fake content-method

a pure CSS method to enable img:after.

You can check out the CodePen: I'm just fake content or see the source.

Source & Snippet

img {
    /* hide the default image */
    height:0;
    width:0;

    /* hide fake content */
    font-size:0;
    color:transparent;

    /* enable absolute position for pseudo elements */
    position:relative;

    /* and this is just fake content */
    content:"I'm just fake content";
}

/* initial absolute position */
img:before,
img:after {
    position:absolute;
    top:0;
    left:0;    
}

/* img:before - chrome & others */
img:before {
    content:url(http://placekitten.com/g/250/250);
}

/* img:before - firefox */
body:not(:-moz-handler-blocked) img:before {
    padding:125px;
    background:url(http://placekitten.com/g/250/250) no-repeat;
}

/* img:after */
img:after {
    /* width of img:before */
    left:250px;

    content:url(http://lorempixel.com/350/200/city/1);
}

<img
    alt="You are watching the ~ I'm just fake content ~ method"  
/>

Browser support

✓ Chrome 10+

✓ Firefox 11+

✓ Opera 9.8+

✓ Safari

No support

⊗ Internet Explorer 8 / 9

Please test in other browsers

Due to the nature of <img> being a replaced element, document styling doesn’t affected it.

To reference it anyway, <picture> provides an ideal, native wrapper that can have pseudo-elements attached to it, like so:

img::after,
picture::after{
    content:"\1F63B";
    font-size:larger;
    margin:-1em;
}

Here's another solution using a div container for img while using :hover::after to achieve the effect.

The HTML as follows:

<div id=img_container><img src='' style='height:300px; width:300px;'></img></div>

The CSS as follows:

#img_container { 
    margin:0; 
    position:relative; 
} 

#img_container:hover::after { 
    content:''; 
    display:block; 
    position:absolute; 
    width:300px; 
    height:300px; 
    background:url(''); 
    z-index:1; 
    top:0;
} 

To see it in action, check out the http://jsfiddle.net/D7C88/">fiddle</a> I've created. Just so you know this is cross browser friendly and there's no need to trick the code with 'fake content'.

The pseudo-elements generated by ::before and ::after are contained by the element's formatting box, and thus don't apply to replaced elements such as img, or to br elements.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/::after

I think the best way to look at why this doesn't work is that :before and :after insert their content before or after the content within the tag you're applying them to. So it works with divs or spans (or most other tags) because you can put content inside them.

<div>
:before
Content
:after
</div>

However, an img is a self-contained, self-closing tag, and since it has no separate closing tag, you can't put anything inside of it. (That would need to look like <img>Content</img>, but of course that doesn't work.)

I know this is an old topic, but it pops up first on Google, so hopefully this will help others learn.

::after may be used to display the fallback image of an image

---

See the example below, first 2 img tags are point to the broken urls. But the second one displays the fallback image instead of the default broken logo from the browser. However, I'm not sure this's any practical, I find it kind of tricky to get it to work right.

img {
  position: relative;
  display: inline-block;
  width: 300px;
  height: 200px;
  vertical-align: top;
}
img:not(:first-child)::after {
  position: absolute;
  left: 0; top: 0; right: 0; bottom: 0;
  content: "<" attr(alt) "> NOT FOUND";
  border: 1px dashed #999;
  background: url(https://cdn.dribbble.com/users/1012566/screenshots/4187820/topic-2.jpg) center/100%;
}

<img src="https://source.unsplash.com/random/100/75" alt="logo">
<img src="https://source.unsplash.com/random/100/75" alt="logo">
<img src="https://source.unsplash.com/random/100x75" alt="logo">

In these cases it is preferable to use the <figure> tag, which allows you to manage the css in an optimal way This way you can use after just on the figure

Example

<div class="exemple">
  <figure>
    <img src="img1.jpg"/>
  </figure>
  <figure>
    <img src="img2.jpg"/>
  </figure>
</div>

This one works for me:

html

<ul>
    <li> name here </li>
</ul>

CSS

ul li::before {
    content: url(../images/check.png);
}

Try this code

.button:after {
    content: ""
    position: absolute
    width: 70px
    background-image: url('../../images/frontapp/mid-icon.svg')
    display: inline-block
    background-size: contain
    background-repeat: no-repeat
    right: 0
    bottom: 0
}

<img> is a replaced element and using :before or :after pseudo-elements on it works if the image fails to load and otherwise it does not work. If you intend to have a fallback in case of image load failure,please refer to https://stackoverflow.com/a/71478688/14204452

Try ::after on previous element.

I tried and found a simpler method to do so. Here is the HTML:

	<img id="message_icon" src="messages2.png">
	<p id="empty_para"></p>

What I did was place an empty <p> tag after my image tag. Now I will use p::before to show the image and position it according to my needs. Here is the CSS:

#empty_para
{
	display:inline;
	font-size:40;
	background:orange;
	border:2px solid red;
	position:relative;
	top:-400px;
	left:100px;
}
#empty_para::before
{
	content: url('messages.png');
}

Try it.

Just give the Image "position: relative" and it will work