Often, journalists spend time writing a good caption, then copy and paste it as their text description. This is bad practice and should not be done.

• A caption must: echo some information already available in the story. It shouldn't be used to add detail that's not available in the piece.
• The text description must: provide all the visual information available in the image.

Captions vs text descriptions

Source: World War Two Easter egg from 1939 set for auction

Original text description: "Egg".

Original caption: "The Mary Mary Quite Contrary Easter egg was given to Ms Cook in 1939."

Recommended text description: "A chocolate egg wrapped in foil in a box with a small doll holding a watering can next to some flowers. The egg is intact, but the silvery blue foil is coming apart in a couple of places."

Recommended caption: As is. The caption provides facts readily available in the body of the piece.