ImageTitler_tutorial-05

Image Titler

Wayne
www.imagetitler.com, www. correctphoto.com

ImageTitler is really a very simple program to learn and, frankly, gives the impression that it is a “tinker toy” application.  The quality and sharpness of the the text on a photo is really excellent and the speed with which you can title a photo is impressive. Yes, if you have and know how to use Photoshop or Elements you can do much more with text than you can with ImageTitler. However, most of us either do not know how to use Elements or find that it is too time consuming.  Therefore, ImageTitler is the answer to simply add text to a photo. I took this photo of my granddaughter on Thanksgiving, cropped and color corrected it with CorrectPhoto and added the simple title with ImageTitler and was finished in a few minutes.

Photo cropped and color corrected with CorrectPhoto and titled with ImageTitler

ImageTitler Process
The simple steps to add text to a photo is as follows:

1. Open ImageTitler and open the photo.
2. Select the font (I usually start with the default Arial font.) and type the text into the text box at the top.
3. Adjust Text Size and Text Position by clicking on the  arrows
4. Choose color-just click on a color and the text color changes
5.  You can change the font and style (Bold and Italics) by selecting a different font and checking the style boxes.
6. Save titled photo. ImageTitler automatically adds a “-Titled” suffix to the file name. You can, however, chose the file name.

If you are adding titles to a group of similar photos and want the text to appear the same on all you can check the “Retain Settings” box and the text you type will appear in the same font, color, size, and location on the next photo.

I like to think of ImageTitler as a photo text application for dummies like me. With ImageTitler I am adding text and titles to more photos than I ever did with Elements. ImageTitler is a Windows only program and is Windows 7 compatible. It sells for $29.00 at www.imagetitler.com or www.correctphoto.com. There is an introductory price on the new 3.2 version of $19.95 for a limited time.

Wayne  www.correctphoto.com, www.imagetitler.com

Create your own greeting card-Dicken's had some help creating his

 Step 1-Edit the photo
As I have said many times, every photo needs to be cropped and color corrected and this shot is no exception. I used CorrectPhoto to crop the photo using the 4×6 cropping format. I chose not to center Dickens so I could add the greeting on the right side of the photo. Using the OneClick color correction feature I clicked on the white portion of his hat and I was done.

Crop and color correct the photo-I used CorrectPhoto Editor

Step 2-Add Greeting Text to Photo
To add the text I used PictoColor’s ImageTitler because it is so simple (I still have difficulty using Photoshop Elements to add text to photos and it takes too long.)

Add Titles and Text to Photos with ImageTitler by PictoColor

After opening ImageTitler I selected the edited photo of Dickens and typed in the text I wanted. I then adjusted the text size and moved the text to the location I wanted using the arrow buttons. I then selected the type fonts from the pull down menu to see which one I liked best. After quickly going through the list of available fonts I settled on Times New Roman with the Bold and Italics option. The whole process only took a couple of minutes and I was finished with Dicken’s greeting card. The quality of the text on the photo is really sharp and crisp and will print quite nicely.

My friend Dick and his wife Joan decided to use a vacation photo for their greeting card this year. Dick is the software developer that created PictoColor’s CorrectPhoto and ImageTitler (I will talk more about Dick in a future post) so he obviously used ImageTitler to add the text to their photo. 

Dick used CorrectPhoto and ImageTitler to create holiday card

After editing and adding the title to the photo they ordered their cards from Costco.com and picked up the cards the next day.

Take the time to create your own greeting card.
If you plan to send a photo greeting card or including a photo with your card I suggest you take spend a few minutes editing and titling the photo. I don’t know if you are like us, but we display the cards and photos we receive during the holidays. Most of the photos end up on our refrigerator door and are seen by our holiday guests. Quite often someone will ask, “Who is this?” So, why not add your name to the photo and answer the question before it is asked? Also, most of the photos tend to be dull and lifeless because, a common characteristic of digital camera photos. As I have discussed many times that is a problem that is simple to fix. It is simple and fast to create a photo greeting card you will be proud to send. All it takes is a little time and the right tools.

Wayne  www.correctphoto.com

As you know if you have been following my postings on Better eBay Sales with Better Photos I am new to selling items on eBay.  After posting a few of birds from my Stangl Bird Collection on eBay it occurred to me that it might be helpful to add the name and catalog number to the photos. This might be particularly helpful for items that are identified both by name and number as is the case with Stangl Birds. I suspect I am not the first one to think about adding a title to an eBay photo, but when I checked the listing of Stangl birds on eBay there were no photos with titles. Maybe it is because most people don’t know how to add a title to a photo or they think it is too difficult or time consuming.

Add a title to eBay listing photo

How to Title Photos

It really is easy and fast to add titles to photos if you have the right tool. If you know how to use Photoshop Elements it is relatively easy to add text to a photo using the text tool. And, you will have a lot of flexibility in font selection, size, spacing, and special effects. But, it can be a bit time consuming and if you don’t have a good working knowledge of Elements it will be frustrating.  Here is a link to a tutorial on adding titles to photos using Elements. http://www.alibony.com/pse/20090519text.htm 

ImageTitler is an easy way to title photos

I prefer a much simpler way to title photos and use a little known application called ImageTitler. This program was developed by a friend of mine, Dick Hilden, and is a very simple and straight forward way to add text to a photo. It is sold by PictoColor and you can find out more about ImageTitler at www.imagetitler.com.

ImageTitler by PictoColor is an easy and fast way to add titles to photos

PictoColor is about to release a new version of ImageTitler next week and you will be able download a free trial version.  I will post an announcement about the new version next week when it becomes available and explain how easy it is to add titles to photos. ImageTitler is a Windows only application so you Mac users will have to use Photoshop.

Wayne  www.correctphoto.com