Family Historian User Group

Does anyone know a way that I can add a caption (box maybe) to the bottom of a photo?

Something like "John, Jane & baby John - Margate 1878" - and if I did manage a caption, would it still be visible in FTM (I currently have V5).

I have Photoshop elements that I use for very basic cropping etc. or indeed if there is another program that would do this for me.

I also have some very small images from Newspaper B,M,D's that are only a couple of lines long, and there would not be enough room on the actual image to add a text box.

Thank you for any advice.

Regards

I use Paint Shop Pro to manipulate images so I'm not sure what the terminology would be for Elements, but one way to achieve what you want is as follows.
1 Create a new blank image (with a white background) slightly larger than the original image.
2 Copy the original image and paste into the new image as a new layer.
3 Use the "insert text option" to add the caption.
4 Save the new image.

Hope this helps!

Could you please update your FH Version so it appears in the right-hand panel.
At the very top of this FHUG page click User Control Panel, then on the Profile tab select Family Historian Version 5 at the bottom and click Submit.
Then you don't have to tell us what you have.

FH does have the ability to add Captions to Media in Reports, etc, but then it would NOT be in the image exported to FTM.

Photoshop Elements can do it, as explained by a Google Search for photoshop elements add caption.

If the image itself is too small, or has no blank area, then expand the image canvas and add the caption outside the original image.

A popular alternative image editor is fhugdownloads:contents:irfanview|> Utility ~ IrfanView that can also change canvas size and add text captions.

I looked into this some time ago as I wanted to do this automatically when I had prints made of home photos via say Snapfish. It is a bit fiddly (trial and error for sizing) but once setup it is fairly automatic for as many as you want to do.

I used the free irfanview
http://www.irfanview.com/
but easiest to get from here with automatic updates if you use the liberkey portable apps manager
from http://www.liberkey.com/en/catalog-flat-list-view.html

I can't remember the details exactly, but I think it goes something like this:
<> If you DON'T want to overwrite the image you need to add some "blank" space;
(If you want to overwrite the image, ignore this step.)
- Image > change canvas size. Here you can add space to whichever part of the picture you want to put your text.
- You might find Image > add border/frame works better if you want it fancy.
<> Edit > Insert text. You can then for instance automatically add the filename

It can get fiddly if your images are not the same dpi, size etc, as you might have to alter text sizes etc accordingly.

You can do the above in batch mode (but care re different dpi/ size etc) via:
- File > Batch..... (or File > Thumbnails, just a different way of selecting your files)
- Batch conversion + Use advanced options > Advanced > tick function required e.g. canvas size or add overlay text (I can't see add border).

It looks very complicated, only because it can do so much. Just tick the bits you want, and do a trial run, AND KEEP YOUR ORIGINALS.

If you work with *.png format files, any changes should be lossless quality, but if *.jpg, ensure you keep your originals intact in case you want to make other amendments later.

To resize my photos captions etc. I use Imagemagick via a batch file.

My batch file has different options and I enable the ones I want to use at the time. It is just a matter of dragging and dropping the photo over the icon on the desktop.

For example: This resizes the input image to 600px wide, adds a black border 1px wide around the image, adds some sharpening and sets the output quality to 80 when saving with the same filename in the same folder as a jpg file but with a th_ prefix.

One useful option is -extent as you can resize the photo and then pad it out to the required size.
This will add black text to an image

This is an image from my website using Imagemagick and php but you can use the same principle to add a caption below an image.

Thank you for all your suggestions.

I have downloaded Irfanview and will have a go at trying it out over the weekend, although as you say it looks like it has many options, some of which look a little complicated!

I have also followed the advice to search Google for help in Adobe Elements. It would appear also that there are videos on YouTube which may be helpful,

I will let you know how I get on.

Regards

I'm pleased to say I have managed my first attempt at adding text to an image. Only took me two hours!

In the end I used Photoshop Elements and the option to "Resize - Canvas Size".

While searching Google I came across the website below and followed the instructions for "Visible Captions". It is by Ken W. Watson., and relates to Digital Photos and Genealogy. It may be of interest to some members.

http://www.rideau-info.com/photos/genea ... oning.html

I will look further into Irfanview - It seems to be a very good viewer., and I'm sure will be useful.

Thanks again for all your tips.

FYI: That Digital Photos and Genealogy link is in our fhugdownloads:contents:service_digital_images_and_genealogy|> Downloads & Links > Service ~ Digital Images and Genealogy.