How to install script tag_cap_images.sh which makes “captioned” images with metadata below the picture. Calls exiftool and ImageMagick.

I am archiving a mountain of family photos, digitally photographing/scanning the hardcopy prints, and then labeling people and places in the file’s metadata. Keywords are great for searches within Lightroom, Bridge, and other software. Titles are nice for briefly indicating the occasion. The caption is a great place for including who is in the photo in which order, as well as other details. A generalized label might consist of the title, caption, keywords, and filename. Digitized images are certainly less bulky than the originals and easier to share than one-of-kind hardcopy photos.

In this fairly technical article, I explore different ways to automatically place selected metadata below an image. But the purpose is far from nerdy. Many people like my relatives are minimalists. They don’t want to use, learn, or pay extra for sophisticated software like Lightroom to look at their photos and labels. They don’t know what metadata is. But they would be happy to look at some of it if it’s in front of their noses. This is why I like the label below the photo. Bonus, you can flip through the images quickly. You can always crop out the text and margins before printing.