Justified Gallery with Captions

Why the caption sits under the image

A justified gallery packs each row out to the full container width and leaves every photo at its own aspect ratio. Nothing is cropped to fit a cell. Each row lands near a target height you set. The gallery above runs the Classic skin, which puts the image on top and the text underneath, where it sits before anyone hovers.

The alternative is text on the image. Fade and Fly draw the title over the photo on hover, and Emerge slides a caption up over its bottom edge. Classic is the pick when the words are part of the information, like a print title, a client name or a shoot year. It also makes the title itself clickable, which Fade and Fly do not. The plain justified demo runs the same rows on Emerge.

What the caption can hold

Two panels decide what a visitor reads. Layout shapes the rows, and Skin fills the text block under them.

• Row Height accepts 20 to 1000 px and defaults to 200. The demo above uses 350. Row Height Tolerance defaults to 0.25, which lets a 200 px target produce rows between 150 and 250 px.
• Last Row Align takes Left, Center, Right or Hide and defaults to Left. Gap defaults to 15 px. There is no column setting, so a narrow screen keeps the row height and fits fewer images per row.
• Items Title Source and Items Description Source can read Image Title, Image Caption, Image Alt or Image Description off the attachment. The default, Custom, prints what you typed into the block.
• Display Title is on with its Title Tag at h2, Display Categories on with Categories Count 1, Display Date at Hide, Display Excerpt off with Excerpt Words Count 15.
• Classic is the only skin with a Read More button, and it starts at Hide. Caption Text Align takes Left, Center or Right and defaults to Center.
• Display Icon is off by default. Switched on with no overlay color set, as above, it tints the overlay black at 20% and draws the icon in white.

Setting up the captions in three steps

1. Add the Visual Portfolio block, choose Media as the content source, click Add Media and pick your images. Click a thumbnail in the list below to open its Media Settings, then type the Title and Description.
2. In Layout, pick Justified and set Row Height to 350, as the demo does. Leave Row Height Tolerance at 0.25 unless the rows look uneven, and set Last Row Align to Hide if a short final row bothers you.
3. In Skin, pick Classic, open the Caption tab and switch on the elements you want. Set Click Action to Popup so a click opens the lightbox. For Elementor or WPBakery, save the same settings as a Saved Layout and pick it in their Visual Portfolio widget.

Fonts and spacing are the Pro part

Everything in the gallery above runs on the free plugin from WordPress.org. The Media source, the justified layout, the Classic skin, the caption elements it shows, the dropdown filter and the popup gallery cost nothing. A license changes how the caption looks, not what it says.

• Typography for the caption title, category, meta, description and the Read More button.
• Caption Dimensions, where Padding starts at 1.5em 2em and Items Gap at 1.5em.
• The Caption Move skin, where the caption floats next to the pointer.
• Image Filter, Transform and the Tilt Effect on the picture itself.

Pro ships as one plugin with the free code already inside it, so nothing is installed twice. The full split is in the free vs Pro table, and the tiers are on the pricing page.

What people ask about captions

Do my Media Library captions become the gallery text?

Only if you point at them. Items Title Source and Items Description Source read the attachment at render time, so editing a caption in the Media Library updates every gallery that uses it. Delete the attachment and the text comes out empty.

Can the text sit on the image instead?

Not on Classic. Its overlay carries the icon and nothing else, so the words stay under the photo. Fade, Fly and Emerge put text on the image, and on Fade and Fly, Text Align drops it into one of nine positions, Center by default.

Do the captions still show on a phone?

Yes. A Classic caption is not a hover effect, so it reads the same on a touch screen, where the icon overlay does nothing. Skins that keep their text on the overlay need Overlay Display set to Always. Pro adds Move Overlay Under Image, which drops that text under the photo below a breakpoint of 320, 576, 768, 992 or 1200 px.