How to vertically align an image inside a div

How can you align an image inside of a containing div?

Example

In my example, I need to vertically center the <img> in the <div> with class ="frame":

<div class="frame" style="height: 25px;">
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" />
</div>

.frame's height is fixed and the image's height is unknown. I can add new elements in .frame if that's the only solution. I'm trying to do this on Internet  Explorer 7 and later, WebKit, Gecko.

See the jsfiddle here.

.frame {
    height: 25px;      /* Equals maximum image height */
    line-height: 25px;
    width: 160px;
    border: 1px solid red;

    text-align: center;
    margin: 1em 0;
}
img {
    background: #3A6F9A;
    vertical-align: middle;
    max-height: 25px;
    max-width: 160px;
}

<div class=frame>
   <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=250 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
   <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=25 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
   <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=23 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
   <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=21 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
   <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=19 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=17 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=15 />
 </div>
<div class=frame>
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=13 />
 </div>
<div class=frame>
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=11 />
 </div>
<div class=frame>
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=9 />
 </div>
<div class=frame>
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=7 />
 </div>
<div class=frame>
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=5 />
 </div>
<div class=frame>
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=3 />
 </div>

The only (and the best cross-browser) way as I know is to use an inline-block helper with height: 100% and vertical-align: middle on both elements.

So there is a solution: http://jsfiddle.net/kizu/4RPFa/4570/

.frame {
    height: 25px;      /* Equals maximum image height */
    width: 160px;
    border: 1px solid red;
    white-space: nowrap; /* This is required unless you put the helper span closely near the img */

    text-align: center;
    margin: 1em 0;
}

.helper {
    display: inline-block;
    height: 100%;
    vertical-align: middle;
}

img {
    background: #3A6F9A;
    vertical-align: middle;
    max-height: 25px;
    max-width: 160px;
}

<div class="frame">
    <span class="helper"></span><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=250px />
</div>
<div class="frame">
    <span class="helper"></span><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=25px />
</div>
<div class="frame">
    <span class="helper"></span><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=23px />
</div>
<div class="frame">
    <span class="helper"></span><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=21px />
</div>
<div class="frame">
    <span class="helper"></span><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=19px />
</div>
<div class="frame">
    <span class="helper"></span>
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=17px />
</div>
<div class="frame">
    <span class="helper"></span>
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=15px />
</div>
<div class="frame">
    <span class="helper"></span>
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=13px />
</div>
<div class="frame">
    <span class="helper"></span>
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=11px />
</div>
<div class="frame">
    <span class="helper"></span>
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=9px />
</div>
<div class="frame">
    <span class="helper"></span>
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=7px />
</div>
<div class="frame">
    <span class="helper"></span>
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=5px />
</div>
<div class="frame">
    <span class="helper"></span>
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=3px />
</div>

Or, if you don't want to have an extra element in modern browsers and don't mind using Internet Explorer expressions, you can use a pseudo-element and add it to Internet Explorer using a convenient Expression, that runs only once per element, so there won't be any performance issues:

The solution with :before and expression() for Internet Explorer: http://jsfiddle.net/kizu/4RPFa/4571/

.frame {
    height: 25px;      /* Equals maximum image height */
    width: 160px;
    border: 1px solid red;
    white-space: nowrap;

    text-align: center;
    margin: 1em 0;
}

.frame:before,
.frame_before {
    content: "";
    display: inline-block;
    height: 100%;
    vertical-align: middle;
}

img {
    background: #3A6F9A;
    vertical-align: middle;
    max-height: 25px;
    max-width: 160px;
}

/* Move this to conditional comments */
.frame {
    list-style:none;
    behavior: expression(
        function(t){
            t.insertAdjacentHTML('afterBegin','<span class="frame_before"></span>');
            t.runtimeStyle.behavior = 'none';
        }(this)
    );
}

<div class="frame"><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=250px /></div>
<div class="frame"><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=25px /></div>
<div class="frame"><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=23px /></div>
<div class="frame"><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=21px /></div>
<div class="frame"><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=19px /></div>
<div class="frame"><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=17px /></div>
<div class="frame"><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=15px /></div>
<div class="frame"><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=13px /></div>
<div class="frame"><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=11px /></div>
<div class="frame"><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=9px /></div>
<div class="frame"><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=7px /></div>
<div class="frame"><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=5px /></div>
<div class="frame"><img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=3px /></div>

---

How it works:

1. When you have two inline-block elements near each other, you can align each to other's side, so with vertical-align: middle you'll get something like this:

   

2. When you have a block with fixed height (in px, em or another absolute unit), you can set the height of inner blocks in %.

3. So, adding one inline-block with height: 100% in a block with fixed height would align another inline-block element in it (<img/> in your case) vertically near it.

This might be useful:

div {
    position: relative;
    width: 200px;
    height: 200px;
}
img {
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    bottom: 0;
    margin: auto;
}
.image {
    min-height: 50px
}

matejkramny's solution is a good start, but oversized images have a wrong ratio.

Here's my fork:

Demo: https://jsbin.com/lidebapomi/edit?html,css,output

---

HTML:

<div class="frame">
  <img src="foo"/>
</div>

CSS:

.frame {
    height: 160px; /* Can be anything */
    width: 160px; /* Can be anything */
    position: relative;
}
img {
    max-height: 100%;
    max-width: 100%;
    width: auto;
    height: auto;
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    bottom: 0;
    left: 0;
    right: 0;
    margin: auto;
}

A three-line solution:

position: relative;
top: 50%;
transform: translateY(-50%);

This applies to anything.

From here.

A pure CSS solution:

.frame {
  margin: 1em 0;
  height: 35px;
  width: 160px;
  border: 1px solid red;
  position: relative;
}

img {
  max-height: 25px;
  max-width: 160px;
  position: absolute;
  top: 0;
  bottom: 0;
  left: 0;
  right: 0;
  margin: auto;
  background: #3A6F9A;
}

<div class=frame>
  <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=250 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
  <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=25 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
  <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=23 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
  <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=21 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
  <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=19 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
  <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=17 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
  <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=15 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
  <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=13 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
  <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=11 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
  <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=9 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
  <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=7 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
  <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=5 />
</div>
<div class=frame>
  <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" height=3 />
</div>

Key stuff

// position: relative; - in .frame holds the absolute element within the frame
// top: 0; bottom: 0; left: 0; right: 0; - this is key for centering a component
// margin: auto; - centers the image horizontally & vertically

For a more modern solution, and if there is no need to support legacy browsers, you can do this:

.frame {
    display: flex;
    /**
    Uncomment 'justify-content' below to center horizontally.
    ✪ Read below for a better way to center vertically and horizontally.
    **/

    /* justify-content: center; */
    align-items: center;
}

img {
    height: auto;

    /**
    ✪ To center this image both vertically and horizontally,
    in the .frame rule above comment the 'justify-content'
    and 'align-items' declarations,
    then uncomment 'margin: auto;' below.
    **/

    /* margin: auto; */
}

/* Styling stuff not needed for demo */
.frame {
    max-width: 900px;
    height: 200px;
    margin: auto;
    background: #222;
}
p {
    max-width: 900px;
    margin: 20px auto 0;
}
img {
    width: 150px;
}

<div class="frame">
    <img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s.cdpn.io/9988/hand-pointing.png">
</div>

Here's a Pen using Flexbox: http://codepen.io/ricardozea/pen/aa0ee8e6021087b6e2460664a0fa3f3e

EDIT 1/13/22

There's a better way to do this using CSS Grid and the place-content shorthand:

.frame-text-grid {
    display: grid;
    place-content: center;
    /**
    ✪ "place-content" is the shorthand for "align-content" and "justify-content".    
    ✪ The "place-content" shorthand requires two values, the first one is for "align-content" and the second one for "justify-content". If only one value is present (like in this demo), then that single value is applied to both directions.    
    ✪ Comment the "place-content: center;" declaration above to see how the elements are spread along the height of the container.
    **/
}

<div class="ctnr frame-text-grid">
    <h2>Using Grid and <code>place-content</code></h2>
    <p>Only two lines are needed to center vertically and horizontally.</p>
</div>

Here's a Pen using CSS Grid: https://codepen.io/ricardozea/pen/c4e27f1e74542618d73e21f7c2276272?editors=0100

This way you can center an image vertically (demo):

div{
  height: 150px; // Internet Explorer 7 fix
  line-height: 150px;
}
img{
  vertical-align: middle;
  margin-bottom: 0.25em;
}

Also, you can use Flexbox to achieve the correct result:

.parent {
  align-items: center; /* For vertical align */
  background: red;
  display: flex;
  height: 250px;
  /* justify-content: center; <- for horizontal align */
  width: 250px;
}

<div class="parent">
  <img class="child" src="https://cdn2.iconfinder.com/data/icons/social-icons-circular-black/512/stackoverflow-128.png" />
</div>

There is a super easy solution with flexbox!

.frame {
    display: flex;
    align-items: center;
}

Imagine you have

<div class="wrap">
    <img src="#">
</div>

And css:

.wrap {
    display: flex;
}
.wrap img {
    object-fit: contain;
}

You could try setting the CSS of PI to display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;

You can try the below code:

.frame{
    display: flex;
    justify-content: center;
    align-items: center;
    width: 100%;
}

<div class="frame" style="height: 25px;">
    <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" />
</div>

CSS Grid

If you want to align a single image vertically inside an image container you can use this:

.img-container {
  display: grid;
}

img { 
  align-self: center;
}

.img-container {
  display: grid;
  grid-auto-flow: column; 
  background: #BADA55;
  width: 1200px;
  height: 500px;
}

img.vertical-align {
  align-self: center;
}

<div class="img-container">
  <img src="https://picsum.photos/300/300" />
  <img class="vertical-align" src="https://picsum.photos/300/300" />
  <img src="https://picsum.photos/300/300" />
</div>

If you want to align multiple images inside an image container you can use this:

.img-container {
  display: grid;
  align-items: center;
}

.img-container {
  display: grid;
  grid-auto-flow: column;
  align-items: center;
  background: #BADA55;
  width: 1200px;
  height: 500px;
}

<div class="img-container">
  <img src="https://picsum.photos/300/300" />
  <img src="https://picsum.photos/300/300" />
  <img src="https://picsum.photos/300/300" />
</div>

Please note that I have used grid-auto-flow: column in both the cases because otherwise the elements wrap to a row with specifying explicit grid items. In the question code, I see the item centered horizontally too. In that case, just make use of the place-items: center instead of align-items: center.

Background image solution

I removed the image element altogether and set it as background of the div with a class of .frame

http://jsfiddle.net/URVKa/2/

This at least works fine on Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 6 and Chrome  13.

I checked, and this solution will not work to shrink images larger than 25 pixels height. There is a property called background-size which does set the size of the element, but it is CSS 3 which would conflict with Internet Explorer 7 requirements.

I would advice you to either redo your browser priorities and design for the best available browsers, or get some server-side code to resize the images if you'd want to use this solution.

http://jsfiddle.net/MBs64/

.frame {
    height: 35px;      /* Equals maximum image height */
    width: 160px;
    border: 1px solid red;
    text-align: center;
    margin: 1em 0;
    display: table-cell;
    vertical-align: middle;
}
img {
    background: #3A6F9A;
    display: block;
    max-height: 35px;
    max-width: 160px;
}

The key property is display: table-cell; for .frame. Div.frame is displayed as inline with this, so you need to wrap it in a block element.

This works in Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer 8 (and later).

UPDATE

For Internet Explorer 7 we need to add a CSS expression:

*:first-child+html img {
    position: relative;
    top: expression((this.parentNode.clientHeight-this.clientHeight)/2+"px");
}

You could do this:

Demo

http://jsfiddle.net/DZ8vW/1

CSS

.frame {
    height: 25px;      /* Equals maximum image height */
    line-height: 25px;
    width: 160px;
    border: 1px solid red;
    
    text-align: center; 
    margin: 1em 0;
    position: relative; /* Changes here... */
}
img {
    background: #3A6F9A;
    max-height: 25px;
    max-width: 160px;
    top: 50%;           /* Here.. */
    left: 50%;          /* Here... */
    position: absolute; /* And here */
}    

JavaScript

$("img").each(function(){
    this.style.marginTop = $(this).height() / -2 + "px";
})

This works for modern browsers (2016 at time of edit) as shown in this demo on codepen

.frame {
    height: 25px;
    line-height: 25px;
    width: 160px;
    border: 1px solid #83A7D3;          
}
.frame img {
    background: #3A6F9A;
    display:inline-block;
    vertical-align: middle;
}
    

It is very important that you either give the images a class or use inheritance to target the images that you need centered. In this example we used .frame img {} so that only images wrapped by a div with a class of .frame would be targeted.

Solution using a table and table cells

Sometimes it should be solved by displaying as table/table-cell. For example, a fast title screen. It is a recommended way by W3 also. I recommend you check this link called Centering a block or image from W3C.org.

The tips used here are:

• Absolute positioning container displayed as table
• Vertical aligned to center content displayed as table-cell

.container {
    position: absolute;
    display: table;
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
}
.content {
    display: table-cell;
    vertical-align: middle;
}

<div class="container">
  <div class="content">
    <h1 style="text-align:center">Peace in the world</h1>
 </div>
</div>

Personally I actually disagree about use helpers for this purpose.

Try this solution with pure CSS http://jsfiddle.net/sandeep/4RPFa/72/

Maybe it is the main problem with your HTML. You're not using quotes when you define class & image height in your HTML.

CSS:

.frame {
    height: 25px;      /* Equals maximum image height */
    width: 160px;
    border: 1px solid red;
    position: relative;
    margin: 1em 0;
    top: 50%;
    text-align: center;
    line-height: 24px;
    margin-bottom: 20px;
}
    
img {
    background: #3A6F9A;
    vertical-align: middle;
    line-height: 0;
    margin: 0 auto;
    max-height: 25px;
}
    

When I work around with the img tag it's leaving 3 pixels to 2 pixels space from top. Now I decrease line-height, and it's working.

CSS:

    .frame {
        height: 25px;      /* Equals maximum image height */
        width: 160px;
        border: 1px solid red;
        margin: 1em 0;
        text-align: center;
        line-height: 22px;
        *:first-child+html line-height:24px; /* For Internet Explorer 7 */
    }
        
    img {
        background: #3A6F9A;
        vertical-align: middle;
        line-height: 0;    
        max-height: 25px;
        max-width: 160px;
    }
@media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:0) {
    .frame {
        line-height:20px; /* WebKit browsers */
    }

The line-height property is rendered differently in different browsers. So, we have to define different line-height property browsers.

Check this example: http://jsfiddle.net/sandeep/4be8t/11/

Check this example about line-height different in different browsers: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7229568/input-height-differences-in-firefox-and-chrome

My solution: http://jsfiddle.net/XNAj6/2/

<div class="container">
    <div class="frame">
        <img src="http://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" class="img" alt="" />
    </div>
</div>

.container {
    display: table;
    float: left;
    border: solid black 1px;
    margin: 2px;
    padding: 0;
    background-color: black;
    width: 150px;
    height: 150px;
}
.frame {
    display: table-cell;
    text-align: center;
    vertical-align: middle;
    border-width: 0;
}
.img {
    max-width: 150px;
    max-height: 150px;
    vertical-align: middle;
}

I am not sure about Internet Explorer, but under Firefox and Chrome, if you have an img in a div container, the following CSS content should work. At least for me it works well:

div.img-container {
    display: table-cell;
    vertical-align: middle;
    height: 450px;
    width: 490px;
}

div.img-container img {
    max-height: 450px;
    max-width: 490px;
}

An easy way which work for me:

img {
    vertical-align: middle;
    display: inline-block;
    position: relative;
}

It works for Google Chrome very well. Try this one out in a different browser.

For centering an image inside a container (it could be a logo) besides some text like this:

Basically you wrap the image

.outer-frame {
  border: 1px solid red;
  min-height: 200px;
  text-align: center; /* Only to align horizontally */
}

.wrapper{
  line-height: 200px;
  border: 2px dashed blue;
  border-radius: 20px;
  margin: 50px
}

img {
  /* height: auto; */
  vertical-align: middle;   /* Only to align vertically */
}

<div class="outer-frame">
  <div class="wrapper">
    some text
    <img src="http://via.placeholder.com/150x150">
  </div>
</div>

If you can live with pixel-sized margins, just add font-size: 1px; to the .frame. But remember, that now on the .frame 1em = 1px, which means, you need to set the margin in pixels too.

http://jsfiddle.net/feeela/4RPFa/96/

Now it's not centered any more in Opera…

I had the same problem. This works for me:

<style type="text/css">
    div.parent {
        position: relative;
    }

    img.child {
        bottom: 0;
        left: 0;
        margin: auto;
        position: absolute;
        right: 0;
        top: 0;
    }
</style>

<div class="parent">
    <img class="child">
</div>

You can use this:

 .loaderimage {
    position: absolute;
    top: 50%;
    left: 50%;
    width: 60px;
    height: 60px;
    margin-top: -30px; /* 50% of the height */
    margin-left: -30px;
 }

Want to align an image which have after a text / title and both are inside a div?

See on https://jsfiddle.net/mariusfv/fwyxjznt/">JSfiddle</a> or Run Code Snippet.

Just be sure to have an ID or a class at all your elements (div, img, title, etc.).

For me works this solution on all browsers (for mobile devices you must to adapt your code with: @media).

h2.h2red {
    color: red;
    font-size: 14px;
}
.mydivclass {
    margin-top: 30px;
    display: block;
}
img.mydesiredclass {
    margin-right: 10px;
    display: block;
    float: left; /* If you want to allign the text with an image on the same row */
    width: 100px;
    heght: 100px;
    margin-top: -40px /* Change this value to adapt to your page */;
}

<div class="mydivclass">
    <br />
    <img class="mydesiredclass" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b3/Wikipedia-logo-v2-en.svg/2000px-Wikipedia-logo-v2-en.svg.png">
    <h2 class="h2red">Text aligned after image inside a div by negative manipulate the img position</h2>
</div>

Using table and table-cell method do the job, specially because you targeting some old browsers as well, I create a snippet for you which you can run it and check the result:

.wrapper {
  position: relative;
  display: table;
  width: 300px;
  height: 200px;
}

.inside {
  vertical-align: middle;
  display: table-cell;
}

<div class="wrapper">
  <div class="inside">
    <p>Centre me please!!!</p>
  </div>
  <div class="inside">
    <img src="https://cdn2.iconfinder.com/data/icons/social-icons-circular-black/512/stackoverflow-128.png" />
  </div>
</div> 

Just for the sake of this being a valid answer I still want to post the jQuery solution again. This works for every element that has the v_align class applied to it. It will be vertical centered in the parent and on resizing of the window it will be recalculated.

Link to the JSFiddle

$(document).ready(function() {
  // Define the class that vertically aligns stuff
  var objects = '.v_align';
  // initial setup
  verticalAlign(objects);

  // Register resize event listener
  $(window).resize(function() {
    verticalAlign(objects);
  });
});

function verticalAlign(selector) {
  $(selector).each(function(val) {
    var parent_height = $(this).parent().height();
    var dif = parent_height - $(this).height()
    // Should only work if the parent is larger than the element
    var margin_top = dif > 0 ? dif/2 : 0;
    $(this).css("margin-top", margin_top + "px");
  });
}

The best solution is that

.block{
    /* Decor */
    padding:0 20px;
    background: #666;
    border: 2px solid #fff;
    text-align: center;
    /* Important */
    min-height: 220px;
    width: 260px;
    white-space: nowrap;
}
.block:after{
    content: '';
    display: inline-block;
    height: 220px; /* The same as min-height */
    width: 1px;
    overflow: hidden;
    margin: 0 0 0 -5px;
    vertical-align: middle;
}
.block span{
    vertical-align: middle;
    display: inline-block;
    white-space: normal;
}

I have been playing around with using padding for center alignment. You will need to define the top level outer-container size, but the inner container should resize, and you can set the padding at different percentage values.

jsfiddle

<div class='container'>
  <img src='image.jpg' />
</div>

.container {
  padding: 20%;
  background-color: blue;
}

img {
  width: 100%;
}

Use this one:

position: absolute;
top: calc(50% - 0.5em);
left: calc(50% - 0.5em);
line-height: 1em;

And you can vary font-size.

This code work well for me.

<style>
    .listing_container{width:300px; height:300px;font: 0/0 a;}
    .listing_container:before { content: ' ';display: inline-block;vertical-align: bottom;height: 100%;}
    .listing_container img{ display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle;font: 16px/1 Arial sans-serif; max-height:100%; max-width:100%;}
<style>

<div class="listing_container">
    <img src="http://www.advancewebsites.com/img/theme1/logo.png">
</div>

You can use table structure inside a div

<div class="frame">
     <table width="100%">
         <tr>
            <td vertical-align="middle" align="center" height="25">
                <img src="https://jsfiddle.net/img/logo.png" >  
            </td>
        </tr>
    </table>
</div>

You can use a grid layout to vertically center the image.

.frame {
  display: grid;
  grid-template-areas: "."
                       "img"
                       "."
  grid-template-rows: 1fr auto 1fr;
  grid-template-columns: auto;
}
.frame img {
  grid-area: img;
}

This will create a 3 row 1 column grid layout with unnamed 1 fraction wide spacers at the top and bottom, and an area named img of auto height (size of the content).

The img will use the space it prefers, and the spacers at top and bottom will use the remaining height split to two equal fractions, resulting in the img element to be vertically centered.

http://jsfiddle.net/Kissaki0/4RPFa/20713/

I was looking for a similar answer and some of the suggestions snapped the image to the left or the vertical ratio squashed the image, so I came up with this solution... It centers the content vertically and horizontally.

 .div{
    position: relative;
    overflow: hidden;
 }
 .bantop img {
    position: absolute;
    margin: auto;
    width: 103%;
    height: auto;
    top: -50%;
    bottom: -50%;
    left: -50%;
    right: -50%;
  }

I use it on several projects and it works like a charm.