Add text to a photo for Instagram so it looks designed, not captioned
Text on a photo fails in one of two ways. Either it is too small and too polite, a caption floating in the corner that nobody reads, or it is a wall of words fighting the image for the same space. The posts that work do something simpler: they decide what the one line is, make it big enough to be the first thing you see, and give everything else a smaller, quieter job.
This guide is that decision, done in dump's browser editor. It covers the two line rule, where text goes on a photo, how to keep it legible without a black box behind it, the inline tricks that make one word do the work, and the font moods dump ships with. It never names a typeface, on purpose: the choice is yours, and the rules here work with any of them.
Text: free with an account. Exports are never watermarked.
The two line rule
A post gets one headline and, if it needs it, one supporting line. The headline is three to six words and it is the reason the post exists: the place, the number, the joke, the claim. The supporting line is the detail, half the size or less, and it can be a date, a name or a full sentence. Anything beyond those two lines goes in the caption under the post or on the next slide. If you cannot get the message into two lines, the post is trying to say two things, and it should be two posts.
Where text goes on a photo
Look for the quiet part of the photo: sky, a wall, water, a table, the out of focus area. That is where the headline lives. Then make sure the headline and the subject do not share a vertical line, so the eye moves from one to the other instead of reading them as one lump. Bottom third for a photo whose subject is high, top third when the subject is low, and dead centre only when the photo is symmetric or the text is the whole point. In dump the grid overlay with thirds is one tap in the page settings, and the text snaps to it.
Size the headline by a physical test: zoom the canvas out until the post is roughly the size of a phone screen. If you cannot read the headline at a glance, it is too small. Most people set it two sizes smaller than it should be, because at 100 percent zoom big text looks aggressive. The feed is not 100 percent zoom.
Legible over a busy photo, without the black box
The instinct is a dark rectangle behind the text, and it works, but it looks like a subtitle. Better options, in order of subtlety. Blur the region of the photo under the text: dump's blur is a real per-object Gaussian, and applied through a filter region only where the text sits it keeps the rest of the photo sharp. Add a soft shadow to the text, the soft shadow preset, which lifts it off any surface without a visible box. Give the text a thin outline for photos with both light and dark areas under it. And the honest last resort: the backdrop, a tinted panel behind the text that you can round and lower in opacity until it reads as a wash rather than a box.
Make one word do the work
The single most effective typographic move on a photo is to treat one word differently from the rest of the line. dump styles text per character range: select a word inside the headline and change only its colour, its weight, or give it a highlight, and everything else stays. The iOS highlight preset puts a rounded marker behind the selected word; a colour pulled from the photo makes a word belong to the image; a heavier weight on the number in a price makes the price the headline. One word. Two starts to look like a ransom note.
Letter spacing and case are the other quiet levers. A short headline in capitals with a little extra tracking reads as a label; the same words in lower case with tight spacing read as a voice. Both are a single control in the text tools, and both are worth trying before reaching for an effect.
The font moods, and which one for what
dump's Text panel groups its library into four moods rather than a long alphabetical list. Essentials are the neutral workhorses for supporting lines and anything that must simply be read. Display faces are for headlines: heavy, condensed or wide, built to be big. Editorial faces are the serifs and the elegant ones, for quotes, fashion, food and anything that wants to feel like a magazine. Playful faces carry a personality of their own and should be the only loud thing in the post. Pick one mood per post, use it for the headline, and set the supporting line in an Essential.
If your brand has its own font, uploading the file is a Studio feature, and once it is saved in Style it appears at the top of the font picker in every document. Everything else in this guide is free.
- 1Write the two lines first, in a note
Headline of three to six words, one supporting line. Cut until it hurts.
- 2Find the quiet part of the photo
Turn on the thirds grid, put the headline in the emptiest third, keep it off the subject's vertical line.
- 3Set the headline big, then bigger
Zoom out to phone size. If you cannot read it instantly, increase it. Pick a Display or Editorial mood.
- 4Fix legibility with the lightest tool that works
Blur region under the text, then soft shadow, then outline, then a low opacity backdrop. Stop at the first one that works.
- 5Style one word and export
Colour, weight or highlight on a single word. Export as PNG or JPG; text bakes in exactly as shown, and nothing is watermarked.
Corners, borders, shadows, blur, blend: free with an account. Exports are never watermarked.
Frequently asked questions
Open the photo in dump's browser editor, add a text element from the Text panel, type a headline of three to six words and place it over the quietest part of the photo. Add at most one smaller supporting line, make the text legible with a blur region, a soft shadow or an outline rather than a black box, and export as PNG or JPG. The editor and the export are free and nothing is watermarked.
Big enough to read when the post is the size of a phone screen. Zoom the canvas out to roughly that size and check the headline at a glance; most people set it too small because large text looks aggressive at full zoom. Supporting text should be half the headline's size or less.
Use the lightest fix that works, in this order: blur the area of the photo under the text with a filter region, add a soft shadow to the text, give the text a thin outline, or put a low opacity rounded backdrop behind it. In dump each of these is one preset or one control.
Yes. Select the word inside the text and change its colour, weight or highlight; only that range changes. One styled word inside a headline is the most effective way to give a line a focus without adding more text.