# exporting jpg with an overlay text (date or others) on the photos



## Loris (Jun 16, 2018)

I am preparing a couple of photobooks (not with lightroom - another soft), so I have exported the pictures and work with that photobook software to create my work.

One is a legal work, the other one a multiyear project, so I was looking for a way to insert (print, overlay) ON THE PHOTO a little stamp, for instance on the right hand corner, with date and time (very important for what I am doing). The infos are on the metadata, but how can I do this? In Lightroom? other software or plug-in?

Lightroom has the capability, in slideshow module,  to show the metadata. But i need to export the photos with the metadata on them, as I said above.
Any idea welcomed.
Loris


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 16, 2018)

Have you looked at the LR/Mogrify 2 plug-in for Lightroom? That will certainly do what you want.
LR/Mogrify 2 - Add Watermarks, Border and Text Annotions to Images Exported by Adobe Lightroom 2


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## Loris (Jun 16, 2018)

Yes, just done that. If it worked, it would be ideal! But there is some problems with fonts' color and background. I believe the plug-in has not been updated to lightroom classic latest and/or high sierra. I wrote to the developer. Let's see what they reply.
Any other alternative, you know of?


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## Loris (Jun 23, 2018)

Still no reply from Developer of Mogrify2 at [email protected]
Does somebody know if they still exist?


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## clee01l (Jun 23, 2018)

The Link that Jim listed is the Download page .  Why do you need to contact the Developer?   All of the information needed is on the page Jim provided. 
That Said.  I have had a difficult time in the past getting an Emil response from Tim Armes.


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## PhilBurton (Jun 23, 2018)

Loris said:


> Still no reply from Developer of Mogrify2 at [email protected]
> Does somebody know if they still exist?


Not long ago there was a thread about another plug-in by the same author.  Keyboard Tamer on Mac  - does it still work?
Are we seeing a pattern here?  A lack of support that can't be explained, unless the author has abandoned the product.  So Tim, if you are reading this post, either step up and fix the problem, or publicly announce that you are no longer supporting and therefore no longer selling these plug-ins.  

Taking people's money and then not responding to support queries, is unethical, full stop.  With Keyboard Tamer, after a few public posts, you suddenly "remembered" that you needed to do an update.  

Phil


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## clee01l (Jun 23, 2018)

PhilBurton said:


> Taking people's money and then not responding to support queries, is unethical, full stop.


Phil, It's donation-ware!  Get a grip on your gripes!


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## PhilBurton (Jun 24, 2018)

clee01l said:


> Phil, It's donation-ware!  Get a grip on your gripes!


Cletus,

Some people develop completely free software and they specifically say, "use as is."  Asking for donations is just a different funding model.  For payments.  And if Tim is collecting payments, however he does, then he has a support obligation.


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## Loris (Jun 24, 2018)

I paid my 10$, as i always do when i find a soft particularly useful. It is NOT donation ware.
To clee01l: I am writing because in High Sierra latest, it does not work as described. Simply that.
And I repeat that it would be very useful to me.
I saw there is a web site Contact | Timothy Armes 
I have sent an email to that contact.
Let's see, may be he forgot about Mogrify, but he should tell, agreed.


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 24, 2018)

It works OK on my High Sierra system. Using the latest 4.50 version. Tested with a couple of different fonts for the text annotation, the only issue seen so far is that the text colour selected doesn't stick, so has to be re-selected at the next export.


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## Loris (Jun 25, 2018)

I tried once again tonight:
- i cannot select a background. If I do (for instance light yellow), I cannot choose another color for text (for instance dark blue), so you cannot see anything. I can select another color for text, but it does not work
- If i deselect background, it prints white text. Cannot choose another color

And it takes three times the usual time for exports. Apparently it is logging and saving some files on the desktop, which are then added to the picture files exported (I am exporting jpg). But if it worked, it would be ok, can still go out for dinner in the meantime...
So, Jim, I do not know how you you managed to get it work the way you said

A very important point that i do not know: does it have some influence on the quality of the exported pictures? Hopefully not.

A very useful utility, indeed, that needs some maintenance. 
So far no reply from author.


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 26, 2018)

What version of Mogrify are you using? I've got version 4.50 installed, and as you can see it is working OK (different colour text/background/borders).

There are a couple of foibles, what appears to be the default font doesn't work (I'm using Arial here) and the colour buttons seem to revert to defaults after an export, but the next export will use the previously used colours unless changed.


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## Tim Armes (Jun 26, 2018)

Hi all,

This appears to be a new bug in Lightroom, which breaks the the API's LRLib_StringUtils.StrSplit function.  I'm trying to find a workaround for the moment.


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## Tim Armes (Jun 26, 2018)

Tim Armes said:


> Hi all,
> 
> This appears to be a new bug in Lightroom, which breaks the the API's LRLib_StringUtils.StrSplit function.  I'm trying to find a workaround for the moment.



And I've found one...

New version published.

Tim


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## Loris (Jul 30, 2018)

Thanks Tim, I will try the new version one of the next week-ends.

I  repeat hier the same question I asked you per email, very important to my project:
- does the overlay reduce in any way the quality of the photo? (I have seen that the export is slowed down a lot, but that's ok. I can go out having dinner in the mean time...)
- how good is the quality of the text? is it a vector overlay (postscript). Or a bitmap?

There is not much explanation in your documentation

Thanks for help
Loris


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