Visual marketing does not stagnate. Ever. It’s a discipline that is always evolving. For quite some time now, using appealing images on social media has been an integral part of the content marketing strategy for numerous brands worldwide. After all, this has proven to be an effective way to enjoy a higher engagement from your audience. Now you can take your images to a new level, by adding text to them.
Adding text to your photos can make a big difference. This can be a great way to make your social media photos stand out, to grab the attention of your followers and make your content more shareable. Whether you want to convey a brand message in an engaging way, let people know about an upcoming sale or release a new product, using the right text on the right picture will help you boost your engagement level.
Today you can add text to your pictures in a truly easy manner. It doesn’t matter if you’re on Android, iOS, Windows or Mac. You can do it directly from your phone, from your desktop or your browser. Below we’ve compiled a list of mobile apps, desktop tools and online solutions you can reliably use for this purpose.
Mobile Apps
PhotoMarks
PhotoMarks is our first proposal to add text to your photos on social platforms. The app is designed for iOS and has the advantage of being super easy to use thanks to the intuitive interface. With PhotoMarks you can insert any type of text you want and customize it to your liking. This means you can place it anywhere on the picture, scale it to the desired dimension or rotate it. At the same time you can choose from numerous font styles and colors, adjust the opacity or apply effects like stroke and shadow.
One of the distinctive features of the app is the possibility to save your texts as profiles. This way, if you need them in the future, all you have to do is load them without having to go through the same adjustments process. Of course, once you’re done editing, you have the option of directly sharing your photo via email or on popular social networks like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. In addition to text comments, PhotoMarks allows you to add logos as well in case you want to brand your images.
Phonto
Phonto is an app for both iOS and Android devices, but it’s worth mentioning that the Android version lacks certain features available in the iOS version. The app revolves around writing on images and is fairly simple to use. Just load an image into the app, tap on the text icon and then begin creating your artwork.
Phonto comes with a large variety of really cool fonts and enables you to add your own fonts at the same time. When it comes to adjusting the text, the possibilities are numerous. You can resize it, tilt it, move it around the image or stylize it. Stylizing includes options to erase part of the text, select the color, apply special effects, change the background, spacing and curving or select a blend mode. The app allows you to save your project and share it with others on social media, via email or perhaps WhatsApp.
PhotoDirector
PhotoDirector is a feature-rich photo editing app for iPhone and Android. The app is mainly designed to help you enhance your pictures, which is why it offers a multitude of editing options. To name just some of the operations available, you can apply AI-powered special effects, remove objects, change the background, replace the sky or make changes to your face to perfect your selfies in a natural manner.
Of course, PhotoDirector also offers a feature to add text to images. Once you tap on the Text tools button in the bottom menu, you’ll be able to choose between two options: Text and Text Bubble. The first option enables you to enter the desired words and customize them as you like. You can select the preferred font style, the format, the text size and color, add a border and more. The Text Bubble option offers creative backgrounds for your text, with numerous shapes, sizes and colors to choose from.
Desktop Tools
BatchPhoto
BatchPhoto is a cross-platform tool primarily designed to help PC and Mac users edit images in bulk. The software enables you to perform a wide range of useful operations, including to write on your photos. You can easily annotate your images and customize the text with regard to the position, size and rotation angle. At the same time you’re free to choose from multiple font styles and colors available, as well as adjust the transparency.
BatchPhoto places at your disposal multiple features to optimize and enhance your images for social media use. These include options to resize, crop, watermark or date stamp photos, as well as options to make various color adjustments, to decorate images with frames and borders or to add artistic effects such as black & white, blur, sepia or charcoal. Pretty useful is the fact that you can save your settings as Profiles and quickly reuse them in future projects.
Polarr
If you don’t know how to write on photos, Polarr is definitely worth checking out. This is an easy-to-use photo editor that tries to make the editing process both quick and fun. Once you load your picture, simply click on the “A” icon, type your text and start adjusting it. You can scale, move and rotate it, choose one of the creative fonts or add various shapes and dividers. At the same time you can select one of the modern text templates available by default.
In addition to writing on images, Polarr is also a great solution for retouching your photos. This cross-platform program is packed with features to help you correct colors and details and hence give your shots a professional look. You can apply various built-in filters to your pics and at the same time create your own. To make your job easier, Polarr enables you to apply the same edits to a larger group of images simultaneously.
Wondershare Fotophire
Wondershare Fotophire is an image editing toolkit available for both Windows and Mac. The software is divided into three main categories: Photo Editor, Photo Cutter and Photo Eraser. In order to add text on pictures you need to enter the Photo Editor and then click on the Text icon. The customizing opportunities aren’t as numerous as in the case of other programs, but you’ll find all the basics from choosing the preferred font and color to adjusting the location and size.
As mentioned before, Wondershare Fotophire is all-in-one editing software. This means that you can use it for diverse editing purposes. The tool comes with standard tools to fix and enhance your images, as well as a wide array of filters and effects to make your photos stand out on social networks. A batch processing feature is available to speed up your workflow and also an option to save your frequently-used settings as presets.
Online Tools
Stencil
Stencil is an online graphic design maker and image editor. If you’re looking for a browser-based app to write on photos and definitely retain the attention of your audience, this one is worth a try. The distinctive feature of this tool is its truly impressive library of photos, fonts, icons, vectors and templates. Basically you can find anything you need for your graphic project without having to leave the app.
In addition to adding customizable text, Stencil comes with a special Quotes feature. The tool places at your disposal more than 100.000 quotes which you can tastefully embed into your social media images. Speaking of social media, with Stencil you can select from the beginning the suitable dimensions for your graphic, whether it’s a Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Pinterest post. There are options to directly share your creation and save it as template for future use.
Pixlr E
Pixlr E is an online photo editor developed for both basic and advanced editing. The tool comes with an icon-based interface and doesn’t require too much accommodation time. You can perform basic image optimization operations, such as trimming, resizing or straightening, as well as resort to the advanced features to create more complex compositions.
Pixlr E offers two ways to annotate your images: you can either add a new text layer or select one of the text templates. Regardless of what you choose, you can completely customize the appearance of your message. This means you’re free to select the desired location on the image, the size and rotation angle, to change the background, adjust the line and letter spacing, create text shapes or drop a warp or shadow effect.
Text2photo.com
Text2photo.com is a web-based solution particularly developed for writing on photos. The tool is designed in an intuitive way, making sure you waste no time searching for options or buttons. The process is as straightforward as it gets: upload an image, a photo collage or graphic design, add and edit your text and then download your file.
Text2photo.com gives you the opportunity to make numerous adjustments to your text. In that sense you can place it wherever you want, resize and rotate it, set the opacity, choose the alignment, select from an impressive array of font styles. At the same time, the tool enables you to create speech bubbles, to add a pad to improve the caption’s visibility or insert your own logo. You can also draw on your picture, add frames and perform image retouching operations.
