Hey photo editing programs — I’m looking at you, Photoshop — a lot of you allow people to place text into graphic images, usually as a text layer. Most graphics with text on the web are made this way. Then we export the image as a jpeg or png/gif, flatting the layers so our artful text is displayed. This is how all the buttons with words are made, as well as the title banner graphics on most web sites.

So photo editors, when you render and flatten the layers, take the visible text (you know what it is) and include it in a tag inside the file, such as the EXIF information. Possibly as the caption if there isn’t already one. Let us disable this, including on just a single layer, but providing it would be a good default.

Then all the web spiders/search engines would be able to find that text. Web page editors could offer that text as a possible “alt” text for the graphic. And the blind would be able to have their web-page readers read to them the text embedded in graphics.

From the shameless narcissism department: I was surprised to see myself and the EFF picked by PC World today at #12 on their 50 most important people on the web list. I’m really there as a proxy for the EFF, I suspect, but it’s great to see our work recognized. I’m pleased to say the EFF is going like gangbusters right now with so many cases under our wing, and many thousands of new members in the last year, thanks in part to the AT&T lawsuit and others. Of course every year we must repeat our fundraising efforts all over again — the vast majority of EFF money comes from individual members and donors, not from corporations much at all, and only to a small degree from foundation grants.

It’s also good to see fellow EFF board members Larry Lessig, Brewster Kahle and Dave Farber on the list, along with many other EFF friends and associates, and my Bittorrent compatriot Bram Cohen appears at #3. Of course, this and $4 will get you a cup of coffee.