Annotations: Mark It, Describe It, Show the Way. Try out This New ZPS X Feature.

Say it with a picture. When you want to describe something for someone simply, graphically, and quickly on a photo, our Annotations feature is here to help. You can use it to caption a photo or mark important places and objects. There’s a truly wide range of ways to use it. Read on to read up on everything that Annotations can do.

Annotations will help you for example when you’re planning a meeting for a group of people and you need to use a photo to show the other people in the group where it will be. Or when you want to direct potential customers towards your company.

You can also do this in the Editor, it’s true, but Annotations will speed up your work considerably. We’ve tailor-made this feature for situations where you need to quickly and easily mark objects in a photo, point to them, or describe them. 

Turning on Annotations

It’s no secret that this feature is more for corporate users than for photographers. That’s why it’s not visible in Zoner Photo Studio automatically. To turn it on, go to the Preferences (Ctrl+M) and then go into the Other preferences, and turn on Show tools for work with documents in Develop. Annotation tools will then be displayed alongside the other tools in the Develop module.

Annotations: Mark It, Describe It, Show the Way - turning it on
Heading into the Preferences to activate Annotations in Develop.

Mark out a Space or Add Simple Shapes 

To mark a space in a photo with a complex shape, use the Polygon tool. Then click around that space’s boundaries to fit the shape of the thing that you want to mark on the photo. If simple shapes are enough instead, then take advantage of the Rectangle or Circle tools. 

Annotations: Mark It, Describe It, Show the Way - polygon
Drawing a polygon—a free-form shape.

You can also fine-tune a shape’s parameters. These include its fill color, its outline, and cross-hatching.

Annotations: Mark It, Describe It, Show the Way - tools
As usual for ZPS, you can adjust shapes just by clicking and dragging in the picture.

Add Text

Often you’ll need to caption a picture. Here for example we needed to mark the Start and Finish points on a route. We activated the Text tool, clicked and dragged to set up the text box, and wrote a caption, twice. Naturally you can also change text’s font, size, color, and style and add other effects to it.

Annotations: Mark It, Describe It, Show the Way - text
Text fields are great for adding captions.

Showing Directions With Arrows

Arrows are a very practical way to visually define a direction or point to a specific place. You can also use them in combination with text. Here again you can choose from a variety of shapes and colors.

Annotations: Mark It, Describe It, Show the Way - arrow
Adding an arrow to point it out.

Each shape and each text box is added on a new layer. These are non-destructive edits, that is, you can move or edit individual objects at any time. 

Annotations Are a Practical Tool

Annotations aren’t the most typical of tools for photographers overall, but they can definitely come in handy for personal or corporate use. Download Zoner Photo Studio X, try it free for 7 days, and show your friends and customers the road to reach you.

Receive our weekly newsletter to stay on top of the latest photography trends

Subscribe to receive the best learn.zoner.com has to offer

Invalid email

By confirming the subscription, you consent to the processing of your personal data for receiving newsletter. Learn more in our privacy policy.

AuthorMatej Liska

I most love taking pictures of people. Weddings, portraits, graduation photos, balls... I am always in search of backlight, but I enjoy various types of lighting and mostly like to use shorter lenses. I love my Nikon, my guitar, and a kebab. You’ll find my photography on my website or on Facebook.

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *