I know - there are a few posts here already that talk about image overlays, but any existing feature doesn’t seem to quite match what I’m after.
In a nutshell - replicate the information overlays found in LR - accessed by hitting the letter ‘i’ on your keyboard in the Develop module.
Therefore, in PL, while in the Customize view, hit “i” on the keyboard (or by some other means) will result in one of several information overlays being displayed. (In LR there are two different overlays and hitting ‘i’ cycles through them. The third time you hit ‘i’ it shows no overlay).
I usually have the filename, date and time displayed over the image while I’m working on it.
Use cases:
I will sometimes use Windows snipping tool to copy an image (or part of it) and paste it into chat with someone - by having that overlay visible it’s immediately clear which image we’re discussing.
I’m often shooting documentary images (surveying wildlife) and while I go through my shoots I’m simultaneously maintaining data and information about the shoot in other software systems. It is helpful if while I’m viewing my image I can very clearly see the date and time (it’s also displayed in quite large text) without having to click elsewhere, or navigate back to the PhotoLibrary tab to locate the EXIF information, or hover my mouse over the thumbnail and wait, etc, etc. This lets me know when photo data relates to the next survey information that was captured.
While I think of it, I’m pretty sure LR lets you specify what information is displayed in each of the 2 available overlays - up to 3 fields of information on each overlay. PL could be better by allowing more overlays and more fields per overlay and customising display location on screen. In LR it’s displayed at top left, over the photo.
In PhotoLab, it’s the Info Panel. When enabled in Edit > Preferences > Display, it will display when you mouse over the image thumbnail in the image browser. However, it cannot be set to “always on” - so a screen capture might have to be complete rather than partial.
However, the information in question is also visible at all times in the Metadata palette in the Customize tab.
Use image properties in the Image menu. (Ctrl-I) in the Windows version of PhotoLab. A similar feature to Lightroom’s overlay does not exist in PhotoLab.
Have a look at the Metadata Panel (Palettes, Metadata)
This will show most of the info that you want and, unlike Image Properties, will remain on screen where-ever you place it (when you are in Customize view) -
even between sessions
Note: the Metadata Panel, by default, shows on the PhotoLibrary screen as well.
I have Metadata, Advanced History and Histogram together on my second monitor and saved as a custom workspace. These show whenever I start PL and I am in Customize view - I.E. they are sticky.
There are sets of info: One set is for the grid view (Library module “Lighttable” style display of images) an other set is for the preview in the Develop module and one more set handles the film strip. The first two sets can be displayed with J and I respectively.
I’d still like to raise this as a feature request though, because using this panel - floating above my photo - it’s still very cluttered. There is way too much information and it’s a big block that blocks out a section of the photo. The information overlays in Lightroom are literally 3 customisable lines of white text on transparent background - for want of a better description, they appear like a watermark on the image, not as a big blocky window.
Also, if I’m discussing photos with a client I just want them to see image name and maybe date or time. The least I can display with the palette is about 14 fields plust the two rows of icons up top.
Is this forum actually the place to raise feature requests?
Yes indeed - I forgot about the second overlay. I permanently have that set to “rule of thirds” - just two horizontal and two vertical lines to break up my image so that when I’m cropping I can consider where I’m placing elements within the frame.
For others reading, there are other options for this overlay including the Golden Spiral and a bunch more that I don’t recall.
