Q&A: Add Descriptions to Digital Photos

Everyone knows the expression, "a picture is worth a thousand words." But if that's the case, then where are the programs that allow you to add a description to a picture's file? What I need is a way to attach more than a name to my pictures. Do you know of any program that will actually let me enter an essay--perhaps a thousand words? I have pictures dating back to the early 1900s. Just changing the name of the picture itself is not enough to duplicate the writing on the back of these pictures.

--Michael Turner, Hamilton, Montana

It sounds like you're looking for a photo organizer, Michael. Most organizers have note or caption fields that let you add as much free-form text as you could possibly need.

I experimented with Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0, for instance, and found that I could enter as much text as I wanted in the program's Notes field. I started with 1000 words, and when the program handled that without a hitch, I tried 2000 and even 3000. That's several pages of magazine text, by the way--if you need more text than that, you're probably writing a novel.

Keep in mind that not all of these long-form notes will be stored in the picture itself. Usually, long notes like the ones you want to make are visible only within whatever program you're using to organize your pictures. If you ever change applications, keep the old one around long enough to copy your text between applications.

You can find Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 at our Product Finder for about $45.