Jquery image swap with fade in and fade out

JavaScript
1

I have a page with four images side by side. What I would like to do is use jquery to fade out the current image and fade in a new one as a hover effect on each image. I didn’t want to do it with just plain css and image sprites because I wanted a smoother effect.

I tried using this code. I could get the images to switch but couldn’t figure out how to add the fade in and fade out to the images.
Thanks

jQuery(document).ready(function($) {

//rollover swap images with rel
  var img_src = "";
  var new_src = "";

    $(".rollover").hover(function(){
      //mouseover

      img_src = $(this).attr('src'); //grab original image
      new_src = $(this).attr('rel'); //grab rollover image
      $(this).attr('src', new_src); //swap images
      $(this).attr('rel', img_src); //swap images 	
    },
    function(){
      //mouse out

      $(this).attr('src', img_src); //swap images
      $(this).attr('rel', new_src); //swap images	
    });

  //preload images
    var cache = new Array();
    //cycle through all rollover elements and add rollover img src to cache array
    $(".rollover").each(function(){
      var cacheImage = document.createElement('img');
      cacheImage.src = $(this).attr('rel');
      cache.push(cacheImage);
    });
});
2

To do a fade, you have to create a second image and stack them on top of each other (with position: absolute or the like). Then do the fade. You can then add a timeout to remove the other image once the fade is complete.

3

Here is what I came up with. I can’t takle credit though, found the answer through google.

Demo: http://waldrondigitaldesigns.com/gallery.html

Jquery:

 // wrap as a jQuery plugin and pass jQuery in to our anoymous function
    (function ($) {
        $.fn.cross = function (options) {
            return this.each(function (i) {
                // cache the copy of jQuery(this) - the start image
                var $$ = $(this);

                // get the target from the backgroundImage + regexp
                var target = $$.css('backgroundImage').replace(/^url|[\\(\\)'"]/g, '');

                // nice long chain: wrap img element in span
                $$.wrap('<span style="position: relative;"></span>')
                    // change selector to parent - i.e. newly created span
                    .parent()
                    // prepend a new image inside the span
                    .prepend('<img>')
                    // change the selector to the newly created image
                    .find(':first-child')
                    // set the image to the target
                    .attr('src', target);

                // the CSS styling of the start image needs to be handled
                // differently for different browsers
                if ($.browser.msie || $.browser.mozilla) {
                    $$.css({
                        'position' : 'absolute',
                        'left' : 0,
                        'background' : '',
                        'top' : this.offsetTop
                    });
                } else if ($.browser.opera && $.browser.version < 9.5) {
                    // Browser sniffing is bad - however opera < 9.5 has a render bug
                    // so this is required to get around it we can't apply the 'top' : 0
                    // separately because Mozilla strips the style set originally somehow...
                    $$.css({
                        'position' : 'absolute',
                        'left' : 0,
                        'background' : '',
                        'top' : "0"
                    });
                } else { // Safari
                    $$.css({
                        'position' : 'absolute',
                        'left' : 0,
                        'background' : ''
                    });
                }

                // similar effect as single image technique, except using .animate
                // which will handle the fading up from the right opacity for us
                $$.hover(function () {
                    $$.stop().animate({
                        opacity: 0
                    }, 450);
                }, function () {
                    $$.stop().animate({
                        opacity: 1
                    }, 450);
                });
            });
        };

    })(jQuery);

    // note that this uses the .bind('load') on the window object, rather than $(document).ready()
    // because .ready() fires before the images have loaded, but we need to fire *after* because
    // our code relies on the dimensions of the images already in place.
    $(window).bind('load', function () {
        $('img.fade').cross();
    });

    //-->

HTML

<div id="gallery">
       <a href="engagements.html"><img src="Images/engagement-small.jpg" style="background: url(Images/engagement2-small.jpg);" alt="link to engagement gallery" class="fade" /></a>
    <a href="weddings.html"><img src="Images/wedding-small.jpg" style="background: url(Images/wedding2-small.jpg);" alt="link to wedding gallery" class="fade" /></a>
    <a href="weddings.html"><img src="Images/family-small.jpg" style="background: url(Images/family2-small.jpg);" alt="link to wedding gallery" class="fade" /></a>
    <a href="weddings.html"><img src="Images/senior-small.jpg" style="background: url(Images/senior2-small.jpg);" alt="link to wedding gallery" class="fade" /></a>
    </div>