Captions

Hi Judith.  Sorry for taking so long to respond.

I tried resetting my preferences as you suggested but Edit > Preferences> did not give me a Reset option.. I tried to find it under General though I am using a PC not a Mac. It was not there either.

Try this:  Before clicking on the Organizer's icon to open the program, hold down the Shift, Ctrl and Alt keys, then click to open.  A message should pop up asking you whether you want to delete all settings.  Respond OK.  This will reset the preferences.

So I tried the File>Manage Catalogue which you suggested. Repair was ghosted out so not available to me either - the only options were New and Convert.

You need to select your catalog in the box.  The option to Repair should then be available.

Re synching - I don't know how to do that. I shall try to find a friend who may be able to help me do it.

If you don't know what I am talking about, forget about it.  I was just trying to find out the relationship, if any, between your laptop and your desktop.  Some people use both with the same catalog on a network or external drive. It is a practice that can cause problems if you don't know what you are doing.

I am back home, and now I understand that the 'caption box' was used in the slideshow module.

You both are absolutely right. I have tested that the last version still installed in my computer which offers the old slideshow module is PSE12. I did not keep PSE13.

The old module before the present automatic one had both options to make use of the 'caption' field in the metadata and also dialogs to manage text boxes to add to individual frames. Good old time...

JLynette said:

I have just checked previous albums and find that the captions I had entered have also disappeared which is most frustrating as it took hours to enter them at the time. Something has obviously gone seriously wrong with that part of the software.

Interestingly, however, I checked on my laptop and there the captions are still in place.

This suggests that the catalog file may have been corrupted.  But it also may have something to do with the fact that the text box is not showing up in full screen view.  Try repairing the catalog.  (Go to File>Manage Catalogs>Repair).

Do you normally save metadata to the file? (Keyboard shortcut Ctrl+W)

Are you synching your catalog between your desktop and laptop?  If so, what method are you using?

JLynette said:

If I reset "preferences" will that affect anything else - I don't think I have ever set any preferences. I would be grateful for your advice.

PS: I rarely look at metadata.

Resetting preferences will not affect anything else that can't be easily reset in the Preferences dialog.

Judith, the text box for captions still exists in Elements 2019.  But, as I said, the option to include it in an Organizer slideshow has been removed (since 2018, I believe).  Are you still using Elements 9?  As I understood your original post, the Caption text box has suddenly disappeared from the full screen view in your installation.  Can you answer my earlier questions so that we can try to troubleshoot your problem.  And have you tried deleting the Organizer's preferences file as I suggested?

I was posting while you edited your reply.

MichelBParis said:  For me, captions in editor or organizer only refer to the piece of information in the metadata, not at all to a text added over an image. 

Michel, I think you are correct about the caption being added to the metadata.   But, in older versions of the Organizer's slideshow, there was an option to add captions to the slideshow.  I just tried it out on version 14 and the captions were on by default.  The caption appears as text below the image in the slideshow and is also contained in the video that is exported from the slideshow.

The caption is no longer presented in the current Organizer slideshow (Elements 2018 and 2019), but I assume there are other applications and browsers that can pull the metadata from the file for viewing.

Sorry Greg, but I must admit that I am answering only from memory since I am not at home and the oldest version here is the French PSE15.

For me, captions in editor or organizer only refer to the piece of information in the metadata, not at all to a text added over an image. In that case, there may be a paragraph box, but no standard caption field is added in the organizer. There is a mention about printing the caption in the organizer in the advanced option, but the caption must have been added before as an information in the catalog, and there is no formatting option.

So, do you get the above message? From the editor, the organizer? Which command? By the way, your screenshot also shows the 'note' metadata field, which is distinct from the 'caption' field.

I'll have PSE6 to test next week.

The oldest version of Elements that I currently have on my machine is Elements 14, which certainly does have the "click here to add caption" control in the Organizer.  I have never used this feature but as far as I can recall, it has always been available in full screen view.  Since JLynette says, " In the past I have added a caption to a full size thumbnail in Organiser by entering it in the "click here to add caption" box,"  I assume that it was available in version 9 and the problem has just occurred in the Organizer. 

I have never seen this problem before, so first I must ask whether existing captions are viewable in the media grid in full screen view? If so, are you able to add a caption in the Information panel which will then show up in the media grid?

I know of no controls that can toggle this feature on or off.  So, the only thing I can suggest is to delete the preferences file.  Click here for instructions.

"I am using PSElements9 on Windows 10. In the past I have added a caption to a full size thumbnail in Organiser by entering it in the "click here to add caption" box."

None of the previous or ulterior versions have that feature.

To be clear, it seems that what you want is to add some kind of text to an image, not add an information to the properties of the digital image.

Adding text to an image is available by adding a text layer in the editor.

Adding a caption information to the file is a property of the organizer, just like you can add tags to your files.

Please confirm what you want to achieve to get more targeted help.

In the past I have used the "click here to add caption" box at the bottom of a full size photo to enter my caption.  However that box is not now appearing.  How do I get it back?   I am using PS Elements 9.

Judith