Captions in Mac photos

[David996]

I have a number of iPhone photos I am organising in Mac Photos.
I have added keywords which have enabled me to sort and filter, using smart albums.
I have also added a specific caption to each photo, on the basis that the definition of "caption" is
<a description "accompanying" an illustration or a photograph>.
However, despite copious googling I can find no way of showing those captions in the photo viewer - only in the info/meta panel.
Have I missed something or do I need to go back and re-input all the captions as "Titles" so that they can be viewed with the photos?
Many thanks
David

 

[IWT]

Hi David,

What I found is that if you add a "caption" by clicking on the space under the picture, that is not searchable.

If you add the exact same "caption" using Cmd + "i", then that info is searchable. Don't know why exactly, but that's my experience.

Ian

 

[David996]

Ian, thank you for jumping to the rescue once again.

I think you may be confirming the anomaly I question: At first glance I was confused by the absence of the "space under the picture" to which you refer. I then toggled "Titles" under the view/show menu, which by default is the default image name. This can then be edited to something custom. The title is appearing exactly where I would expect a caption to appear.

Therefore I believe the "caption" you are referring to may in fact be the Title. If so are you confirming that I will have to abandon all my captions and/or copy them all individually to the Title input fields for each image again?

If this is so, then I question what is the point of the "caption" input in the info/meta dialog? I don't need them to be searchable. I simply want them to accompany the images in the viewer which I have searched using the keywords.

Or am I still missing something?

To be clear on exactly what I have been doing the past couple of days:
I am an angler, and the images are of fish.
The keywords are the various Species, the Names of the Lakes, Size Brackets (10lb+, 15lb+, 20lb+ etc). Another keyword is Duplicate which applies to different images of the same fish, other than the primary, which can now be excluded at will by using smart albums, thanks to your previous assistance.
The Caption (or possibly now the Title) to be visible under each image is the exact weight in lbs ozs.
Hope that makes sense.

 

[IWT]

David, I'm sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

Here's what I hope answers your query better than I did last time.



This is a picture with no added data.

If I add something under "Add a Title" - that appears under the picture and is searchable.

If I add something under "Add a Caption" - that is only searchable in a vague way. For example if I entered "Tree" and used Search, it brings up all pictures that Apple think contains a Tree, and mixed in with these pics, and under a Heading called "Caption", will appear the picture you want. So as long as you are prepared to troll through the pictures offered to you when you search, you will eventually find your picture.

If I add a "Keyword", that is searchable in a different way. Instead of using the Search box, you click on "Filter by" and from the dropdown, select the Keyword you want and all pics with that Keyword will show up.

I have confirmed again that you can add more than one Keyword but searching seems to require you to search each Keyword separately. Put another way, I can't find a way to search "Holiday" and "Beach" and "Family" together; UNLESS I use the Keyboard Manager and click on them all. Even that is problematic, I'm sorry to say.

As you probably know already, there is another way of adding a Keyword. With your picture highlighted, use Cmd + K to enter the Keyword Manager where all your current Keywords are shown, along with some suggestions (rarely helpful) and where you can create a new Keyword by clicking on "Edit" at the very bottom of the list, then clicking on the "+" sign.

I'm not at all sure that I've helped you much - if at all. But for the moment, that's the best I can do. Sorry.

Ian

 

[David996]

David, I'm sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

Here's what I hope answers your query better than I did last time.

If I add something under "Add a Title" - that appears under the picture and is searchable.

If I add something under "Add a Caption" - that is only searchable in a vague way. For example if I entered "Tree" and used Search, it brings up all pictures that Apple think contains a Tree, and mixed in with these pics, and under a Heading called "Caption", will appear the picture you want. So as long as you are prepared to troll through the pictures offered to you when you search, you will eventually find your picture.

If I add a "Keyword", that is searchable in a different way. Instead of using the Search box, you click on "Filter by" and from the dropdown, select the Keyword you want and all pics with that Keyword will show up.

I have confirmed again that you can add more than one Keyword but searching seems to require you to search each Keyword separately. Put another way, I can't find a way to search "Holiday" and "Beach" and "Family" together; UNLESS I use the Keyboard Manager and click on them all. Even that is problematic, I'm sorry to say.

As you probably know already, there is another way of adding a Keyword. With your picture highlighted, use Cmd + K to enter the Keyword Manager where all your current Keywords are shown, along with some suggestions (rarely helpful) and where you can create a new Keyword by clicking on "Edit" at the very bottom of the list, then clicking on the "+" sign.

I'm not at all sure that I've helped you much - if at all. But for the moment, that's the best I can do. Sorry.

Ian

Ian,

No need to apologise. You are not at my beck and call, and I appreciate that you have gone out of your way to help.
As you suggested , you have confirmed all that I thought in my previous message.
To add a further nail in the coffin, I now find out (having spent days understanding and executing these processes) that none of this effort (smart albums) can be synched with my iPhone :-(
The point of this whole exercise was to be able to show the searched and filtered images to others, at will, on my phone.
That idea seems to be a dead duck :-(
Anyway, thanks again for your help and your efforts to point me in the right direction.

David