A look at captioning with Irfanview
The Legal Genealogist is a big fan of Irfanview, a free graphics editing program.
One thing I like best about it is how easy it is to use Irfanview to add a caption to a photograph to save the source citation information.
So, twice in the past, I’ve written about how to do that.1
And yesterday I got a reminder that not everybody learns the same way. A reader was really struggling with the instructions I provided. Reading them just didn’t make sense.
And — duh! — it finally dawned on me that this is a perfect case for show-and-tell, rather than use-words-to-describe.
So… let’s take a look at captioning with Irfanview. Literally take a look.
Here ’tis. An Irfanview add-a-caption show-and-tell for the visual-auditory learners in the crowd. (Email readers may need to click on the link there instead of the image below.) 2
With apologies for taking so long to think of doing it this way…
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Adding that image citation,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 01 Mar 2021).
- See Judy G. Russell, “An image citation how-to,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 17 Mar 2014, and “Repeat: an image citation how-to,” posted 17 Mar 2016 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 1 Mar 2021). ↩
- Judy G. Russell, “Adding a caption using Irfanview,” Vimeo.com. ↩
I have used and recommended Irfanview for many years to add metadata to JPG images. In this way, I have a lot of room to include information about the image such as identity of subjects, places, occasions, etc. This information is in addition to the caption described in this post. I am also able to add tags, keywords, categories, etc. Irfanview opens a world of possibilities when one clicks on the “Image” tab, then “Information.” From here click “Comment,” or “IPTC info.” And for some really interesting possibilities, if available (as determined my the camera that took the picture), click “EXIF info*” and explore the buttons at the bottom of the resulting window. Very powerful for a free program
Metadata is terrific if (a) you don’t post the image to an online source that automatically removes the metadata and (b) other people have a clue what metadata is and where to find it… Otherwise, this is a much better way of ensuring that the citation info is available in the future.
I’m a fan of Irfanview as well. There is another way to enter text that I prefer. Once you have extended the canvas size for a caption, press F12 or from the menu select Edit->Show Paint Dialog. The Paint Dialog shows icons for a bunch of tools, click on the “A” icon, to use the Text Tool. The cursor changes to a “+” and clicking in the area created for the caption, will open an Insert Text dialog. The benefit of this approach is that text can be formatted with italics, etc. instead of having a single style.
Yep, another nice option.
On my list of “what to try out today”. Thanks
Judy, thanks to your previous post on Irfanview, I’ve been using it for a few years. I just learned something from your video, namely the trick of outlining a box to position the text. That sure beats my trial/error click point method of inserting text. Thanks once again!
Thank you for that. So easy. For ages I have wanted to be able to add captions/sources to photos and other images. Now I can.
Is there something similar for a Mac?
I’m not a Mac user, but my Mac-using friends say they use the built-in Preview.
Fantastic tip, thank you very much. Now I have a lot of work to do with all of my older photos, to identify the locations/people/dates associated with each one.
Excellent video; it illustrates well, exactly what I have been doing with Irfanview for 12+ years. NOTE that since the video was posted, there is a new Irfanview option that automatically extends the canvas as you add the text. It saves a few steps and makes it less error-prone. (I came here via CyndisList.)