How to use the Artwork Description & Alt Text Generator
- Enter the facts once. Title, artist, year, medium and size go at the top. Type the size in inches or centimeters; every output shows both.
- Describe what the picture shows. Write it the way you’d describe it over the phone, main subject first: “an empty beach at low tide, with one figure walking a dog along the waterline”. Add the key colors and pick a mood.
- Set how it’s sold. Choose where you sell, how it’s framed, whether it’s an original or a limited or open edition, and tick signed or certificate of authenticity if they apply. Matted pieces get the standard frame size they fit, worked out from the artwork size.
- Work through the five tabs. Listing holds the shop description, Alt text the image description, Etsy a title plus 13 tag ideas, Instagram a caption and Label a gallery wall label, each with its own character count; the colored badges above the tabs show at a glance which texts are inside their platform’s limit. Every box is editable, and Reword gives you different phrasing from the same facts.
- Fill the [brackets], then copy. Anything in square brackets is something only you know — your dispatch time, where the signature is. Use Copy on each card or Download all .txt to keep the whole set with your inventory records.
Why one description doesn’t fit every place
The same painting gets read in very different ways depending on where someone meets it. A shopper on Etsy scrolls past dozens of thumbnails and decides from the title and first line whether to open the listing. Once inside, they hunt for practical answers: how big, framed or not, how it ships. A listing that opens with three paragraphs about your inspiration buries those answers.
Instagram reverses the order. People come for the picture and the story, and the practical details can sit lower down. Captions can run to 2,200 characters, but only the first line or two show before “more”, so the hook has to work on its own.
A gallery wall label is the strictest format of all. Museums follow a fixed order — artist, title, date, medium, dimensions — so visitors know exactly where to look, and the title is set in italics.
Alt text serves a different reader entirely: someone using a screen reader, or anyone whose connection fails to load the image. It should describe what is visible, starting with the most important thing, in a sentence or two. A common guideline is to keep it to about 125 characters; screen readers will read longer text, but a listener can’t skim. Etsy, Instagram and most website builders all have a field for it, and it is one of the quickest accessibility wins a seller has.
Alt text: before and after
| Weak alt text | Better alt text | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| image of my painting | Oil painting of an empty beach at low tide, with one figure walking a dog along the waterline. | Says what is actually visible; drops “image of” |
| Low Tide, Late Light, 16x12 oil on canvas, $450, free shipping | Oil painting of a beach at low tide in slate blue and ochre. | Prices and sizes belong in the listing, not the alt text |
| beach art coastal decor seascape wall art gift | Watercolor of three gulls standing on wet sand at dusk. | Keyword lists are useless to a listener |
| A breathtaking, soul-stirring seascape | Seascape with a pale sky and a single sailboat on calm water. | Describe, don’t review |
Anatomy of a wall label
Galleries and museums use the same few lines in the same order, and following it makes your work look at home on any wall:
| Line | Example | Convention |
|---|---|---|
| Artist | Mara Ellison | Sometimes followed by birth year, e.g. (b. 1991) |
| Title, year | Low Tide, Late Light, 2026 | Title in italics |
| Medium | Oil on canvas | Materials first, then support |
| Dimensions | 12 × 16 × 1.5 in (30.5 × 40.6 × 3.8 cm) | Height × width × depth |
| Edition (prints) | Edition of 25 | Or the specific number, such as 7/25 |
Note the order of the dimensions. Online shops often list width first, but museum labels give height first. The generator follows each convention in its own output, and spells out “wide” and “high” in the listing so buyers can’t misread it.
Common sizes, converted
| Artwork (in) | Artwork (cm) | Standard frame a mat fits |
|---|---|---|
| 5 × 7 | 12.7 × 17.8 | 8 × 10 in |
| 8 × 10 | 20.3 × 25.4 | 11 × 14 in |
| 11 × 14 | 27.9 × 35.6 | 16 × 20 in |
| 12 × 16 | 30.5 × 40.6 | 16 × 20 in |
| 16 × 20 | 40.6 × 50.8 | 18 × 24 in |
| 18 × 24 | 45.7 × 61.0 | 24 × 30 in |
The frame column assumes at least an inch of mat on every side, which is the least that looks deliberate. For exact mat openings and borders, use the Frame & Mat Size Calculator.
Tips from practice
Put the answer to “how big is it?” in a photo too. A shot of the piece on a wall or held in hands sells size better than any number. Mention in the listing which photo shows scale.
Keep the Etsy title readable. Lead with what the item is — “Original Oil Painting” — then the subject and size. A string of repeated keywords looks like spam to buyers, and Etsy’s own seller guidance now favors short, clear titles over stuffed ones.
Use all 13 tags, but make each one different. Tags work as phrases, so “coastal wall art” and “beach painting” reach different searches. Don’t repeat the same word in five tags.
Write alt text for every photo, not just the first. Detail shots and room mockups need their own: “Close-up of thick ochre brushstrokes along the waterline” tells a listener something the main description doesn’t.
Check what you take home before you price. Listing and payment fees add up on small prints; run the numbers in the Etsy & POD Profit Calculator, and build your post’s tags with the Hashtag Generator for Artists.