The Caption utility is useful for several situations where you may want to put text or graphics on your images.  Caption allows you to overlay graphics or text with arbitrary transparency and rotation.  For example, you may want to caption the picture for the benefit of your audience, you may want to mark the image as a proof or a sample, and you may want to mark it with a copyright notice.  All of these functions can be performed with the Caption utility. 

The image above includes two watermarks, one specifying that the image is a sample (or proof) across the center of the image and the other specifying the copyright information in the lower right.

Caption Type

The Caption utility can overlay text or graphics onto you image.  If you are overlaying text onto your image, choose "Text,"  otherwise choose "Graphic."

Caption Location

The Caption location is specified in any of seven locations.  These main locations can be further adjusted by applying the X Offset or Y Offset factors.  With a 0 offset, the text or graphic will be placed along the edge of the image (for text a small offset is applied to accommodate character descenders etc).  A value of 1 will offset the caption by one multiple of the caption height.

In addition a rotation factor can be applied to rotate the text or graphics when it is displayed.  A positive value is a clockwise rotation and a negative value is a counterclockwise rotation.  A value of 180 will cause the caption to be displayed upside down.

Overlay Graphic

Click the Browse button to bring up a file selector.  You may choose any .jpg or .gif file to be your graphic caption.  GIF images are often used for this purpose because they allow for transparency within the overlay graphic. 

The Size To parameter will adjust the graphic size relative to the size of the image it is being displayed on.  A value of 100% would create an overlay graphic that is as high as the image.  If the "Maintain Overlay Graphic Size" button is checked, the Size parameter will be ignored and the overlay graphic will not be resized.  This value can vary from 1 to 99%.

The "% transparent" value specifies how much of the underlying image should show through the overlay graphic.  A value of 100% would make the overlay graphic invisible while a value of 0% will make the overlay graphic completely opaque.   This value can vary from 0 to 99%.

Caption Text

In the box marked "Caption Text," you enter the words you would like to have overlaid on your image.  This text can refer to metadata information such as the image title or date which will be replaced in the actual caption.  For example caption text of "{image digitizeddate}" will result in a caption with the date that the image was taken.  For more information see Text Substitution.

At the right end of the Caption Text is a button that inserts a "©" copyright symbol.  This is included because it is common for watermarks to include a copyright notice, however, the "©" is not found on a standard keyboard. 

More Caption Details

On the right side of the editor you can choose the font you would like to use as well as the style. 

The size is specified in terms of a percentage of the size of the image.  For example, if your image is 100 pixels in height, a setting of 10% will create a text that is approximately 10 pixels in height.  The same settings for am image that is 1000 pixels in height will create text approximately 100 pixels in height.  Other programs allow you to set the size in points or pixels, but DPU allows the size of the text to change with the size of the image which is often more desirable.  This value can vary from 1 to 99%.

The opacity is also specified as a percentage.  100 % transparent is completely invisible while 0% transparent is completely opaque.  This value can vary from 0 to 99%.

The text color can be specified by clicking on the colored rectangle next to "Text Color."  A color editor will be displayed to let you choose a color for your text.

If the Outline check box is checked, the text will be outlined in the color specified by the rectangle to the right of "Outline Color."  Clicking it will display a color editor to aid in choosing an outline color.

The "Query per image for caption text" checkbox, when checked, will cause the dialog box shown above to appear for each image you process to allow you to input a unique caption for each one.

Additional Information

It should be noted that the process this utility employs for watermarking results in a visible watermark.  It is NOT what is knows as a digital watermark such as those supported by Digimarc.  Thus far our customers have not requested this feature in significant enough numbers warrant us licensing technology from Digimarc and potentially raising the price of our product.  If you would like digital photo utilities to support Digimarc digital watermarks, please submit a request to us under feedback in our support page.