After taking your photo and editing it, you are ready to write and attach the photo caption to your photograph.

Writing Captions

To start off, make sure that you have all of the information that you need to write the caption: Names, dates, and places. Next, make sure that you cover all of the 5W’s and H so that the reader gets an idea of what makes this photo significant. Once you have all this information, start putting the information together.

Your first sentence of the caption should be in present tense and tell the reader what is currently happening in the photo. Once you cover that information, include some other information NOT in the main story to further advance the reading experience. This can be anything from a quote from the person pictured to a fact that was not used in the main story. Whatever you put in the photo caption should increase the reader’s interest in the topic and make them WANT to read the story.

Tips:

• Avoid making assumptions. Do not assume anything that you can see in the photo. It is always best to get quotes from people to really understand how they felt in that moment.
• Avoid the obvious. Do not use phrases such as ‘is shown, is pictured, looks on, above, etc.’ because the reader can already tell who is pictured. Also, tell the reader what they cannot see or might not know about the photo.
• Start your captions as general and get more specific. Give your reader a broad idea of what the story is about and then provide them more information to get them interested in reading the story.
• If you have to label multiple people in a photo, identify people from left to right and start your caption with the phrase ‘from left.’

Attaching Your Caption to the Photo

Now that you have your photo caption ready and you have spell checked everything, you are ready to add the caption to the photo file. There are two ways that you can do this: through Photoshop or by adding a comment to the document itself.

Photoshop:

1. When you have your photo open in Photoshop, go up to File>File Info.

2. A dialogue box will appear that has a place for you to title the photo, input your name, input the caption and add keywords to your photo for easier searching.

3. When inserting your caption into the photo, you should place it into the Description box. You can also put your name into the Author Title box if that will help you later on deadlines.

Adding Comments:

The other way to put a caption on your photo is through your computer itself. If you right click on your photo, you should be able to get some info for the photo or have a dialogue box on your system browser that you can post a comment into. In that place, you can add your caption and then anyone can see that information even if they do not have Photoshop.

There you go! You now have your perfect photo that you created with custom settings, edited in Photoshop and added your caption all for a photo that is ready for the final deadline.