#AltText part 2: How to write Image descriptions?
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Always say the format of the image your describing. It is an screenshot? A photo? a drawing? a meme?
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Describe the placement of objects in the image and the spatial relation between them.
For example, let’s say you have the image of a squirrel with a tree on the background. You could describe the image as:
“A squirrel looking at the camera. behind it, to the left corner there’s a tree.”
- Describe colours. You don’t need to go on board with extremely specific shades, tones,etc, just general colours. But those may be needed when describing flags or things/animals that are two tones of the same colour.
Continuing the example. Let say the squirrel has a darker shade of brown in its ears, tail and chest than in the rest of its body. Describes the eyes too.
Do not forget to mention the colours of background objects too.
“A squirrel looking at the camera. It’s completely brown with it tail, ears and chest being of a darker shade of brown than the rest of its body. Its eyes are black and glassy looking.
Behind it, to the left corner there’s a tree. Its trunk is a grey-ish brown and the leaves at the top are different shades of yellow, red, and orange”
- If there’s a person on the picture, describe race, gender (if you don’t know their gender for sure,use they/them pronouns and neutral language and add a presentation type “a person who presents as masculine” instead of “a man”), hair colour and style, clothing, accessories they wear (including glasses, hearing aids, etc) and the like. If the person is known, add their name. Important: what is the person doing?
Let add a person to our example then:
“A photo of a squirrel looking at the camera. It’s completely brown with it tail, ears and chest being of a darker shade of brown than the rest of its body. Its eyes are black and glassy looking.
Behind it, to the left corner there’s a tree. Its trunk is a grey-ish brown and the leaves at the top are different shades of yellow, red, and orange. Behind the tree, more to the right of the squirrel, a person presenting as feminine, can be seeing looking at their phone. They’re wearing a red blouse, a pair of jeans and red shoes. Their hair is blond and curly, and light complexion”
- If known, add the breed of the animal or the type of plant. I don’t know much about squirrels, so lets put the tree as an example:
“A photo of a squirrel looking at the camera. It’s completely brown with it tail, ears and chest being of a darker shade of brown than the rest of its body. Its eyes are black and glassy looking.
Behind it, to the left corner there’s a hazelnut tree. Its trunk is a grey-ish brown and the leaves at the top are different shades of yellow, red, and orange. Behind the tree, more to the right of the squirrel, a person presenting as feminine, can be seeing looking at their phone. They’re wearing a red blouse, a pair of jeans and red shoes. Their hair is blond and curly, and light complexion”
- Describe emotions if posible.
“A photo of a squirrel looking curiously at the camera. It’s completely brown with it tail, ears and chest being of a darker shade of brown than the rest of its body. Its eyes are black and glassy looking.
Behind it, to the left corner there’s a hazelnut tree. Its trunk is a grey-ish brown and the leaves at the top are different shades of yellow, red, and orange. Behind the tree, more to the right of the squirrel, a person presenting as feminine, can be seeing looking at their phone. They seem to be laughing as something. They’re wearing a red blouse, a pair of jeans and red shoes. Their hair is blond and curly, and light complexion”
(Continue here)
- In the case of describing flags or objects that may contain stripes of different colours, you can do so by going left-to-right or right-to-left (for vertical stripes), top-to-bottom or bottom-to-top (for horizontal stripes). Mention also the width of the stripes.
Let say someone wants. to upload a image of the Canadian flag and needs to add a description. it could be this way:
“An image of the Canadian flag. It contains three vertical stripes, its colours from left-to-right are: red, white, red. The white stripe is twice as long in wide and contains a read maple leaf in its centre”
- When describing images containing text or emojis, explain the placement of the text/emojis. Add colours, differences on case, and fonts if necessary. Establish the reading order/direction of the text.
Three rules:
- Be concise: Only describe objects and details that are essential to understanding the image.
As it can be seeing in my first example, there’s no mention of the sky, the ground, the type of phone, etc. as they’re not relevant information. The main objects there a squirrel, tree and person.
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Try to give a complete description: Explain in detail the the important visual information.
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Add the context of the image when necessary: where does it come from? What relation it has to the context it was in? Often context isn’t necessary. Only add it when it’s important to understand the image you’re describing.