Creating Captioned Memes in Mac Photos

You can add captions to your photos right in the Photos app if you use the built-in Markup extension. You can add text and provide contrast between the text and the image. You can also add speech bubbles, lines and other elements. You can also do this to image files using Preview.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today let me show you how to make captioned meme photos, like this one, in the Photos app.
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So usually graphics like these, with text over an image, are created either in an app like PhotoShop or maybe using some sort of online website that puts text on an image. But you don't need any of that. I'm using Photos version 4 which is part of Mac OS Mojave and using that I can go into Edit and you won't see any ability to add text or captions or anything in here. You'll just see Light and Color adjustments. You'll see the ability to do Filters and Crop and all of that. 
If you click on the Extensions button here one of the extensions you'll have is Markup. The rest of these are added by third party apps but Markup comes with the operating system. You get a set of tools here that are similar to the set of tools you might be familiar with in Preview and Mail for marking up an image or a pdf. Now I can create a text box by clicking on the Text button here. Then I can type my text. Once I enter my text I can select All, Command A, and I can make adjustments here in the text properties.
So I'm going to change the font here to something else. I can adjust the size a bit. I can even make it bold. Now I can move this text around and put it where I want. Now often it's useful to create more of a contrast between the text and the background. You can do that by adjusting the photo before you add this text. But you can also add a box. I'm going to click here and add a box. Then position that. Now it's important to set the border to Nothing. Then I'm going to set the color to black. Then I'm going to go to Show Colors here and I'm going to adjust the opacity and make it semi-transparent. So maybe for something like this at 30%.
I can take this and position it over the entire photo. Now it's going to cover the text as well. So what I want to do is I want to select the text. I'm going to cut it, Command X, and paste it again so now it's on top. Now the cover here goes between the text and the image and I can have it fill the entire image there. Or maybe I just want it to fill the bottom so the text stands out and the rest of the image is dimmed. When you're done you hit Save Changes and it will save this. Now that's what the image will look like.
All editing photos is non-destructive meaning I can always use this Revert to Original button when I'm in editing mode. So I can even say I'm done but go back into editing mode and revert to original. Once you're done with it this is what your image will look like. So any time you export or share it's going to have this text on it.
Here's another image. Now I want to go and Edit it and Crop it before I add the meme text to it. So I'm going to crop it like this. Hit Done. Then I can go and Edit, Markup and add text now here. Then maybe change the font to something else. Right justify it. Make it larger. Then I'm going to move it here to the corner. This works pretty well with the color as it is. It stands out really well.
So here's one of the most classic memes here. Let's say you want to actually have text in a box here. That's what is usually done with this classic image. You can Edit and do Markup. Instead of using the text button here you can actually go and use a box. The boxes can have text in them. So I can do, I'll adjust the size down and center it. I can adjust the text box there. I can make it something where it's not semi-transparent so like that. I can position this here and then I can Option, Drag, anytime you need to duplicate something you can Option Drag it,  and add similar text there.
There's also a lot of other things you can do. For instance you've got a bubble box there that you can use. You can type text in here. You've got other shapes as well. You can also add lines and arrows and of course you can use one of these two tools here to just draw a line on it. You can set whether or not it follows what you drew or try to smooth it out.
Now if you have an image that's not in the Photos app, just a file, you can open it up in Preview and then use the markup tools in there. It's essentially the same thing here. So you can add text. You can add a box and type text into the box. You can change colors and add lines and everything that you could do in Photos, just in Preview. When you're done you can go and Export it as an image and the text and elements you've added will be imbedded in the new image file.

Comments: 8 Responses to “Creating Captioned Memes in Mac Photos”

Patrick Mc Namee

4 years ago

Top class Gary

Good post. I always select and duplicate the image I want to mark up so I can do multiple versions of the original. Wish there was a markup extension that brought back the cloud-shaped thought bubble.

Dave Hall

It is also worth noting that if you go back to Markup in Photos you can usually edit the text you have previously inserted.

Dan

@ JF You could always take the time to draw a cloud form with no back ground and save(click and drag to desktop) it then just bring it in any time you want, copy it and then re-save the blank copy, re-size in the new photo, add text then save the new photo.

Bob

Great job.

How do we outline text?
I can't seem to find that capability
in Preview, Photos, or the iWork apps

I should have mentioned the captioning text on the
video still shown above as what I mean by outlining.
Sorry.

Gary Rosenzweig

Bob: That's actually a brand new feature of Pages/Numbers/Keynote that I talk about here: https://macmost.com/new-text-fill-options-in-pages-and-keynote.html

Many thanks for your reply and that great post.

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Creating Captioned Memes in Mac Photos

Comments: 8 Responses to “Creating Captioned Memes in Mac Photos”

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