Annotating Photos

They say a photo is worth a thousand words, and in PIM, photos can help tell the full story of a property’s condition. The app now includes annotation tools that let you easily highlight areas using symbols, lines, arrows, and text — perfect for drawing attention to items that require maintenance or further inspection. You can even rotate photos if they were taken upside down!

These tools make it simple to provide extra context for owners and tenants, ensuring everyone has a clear understanding of the property’s condition.

Let’s take a look at how to get started with photo annotations!

Watch the video below covering how to take photos and annotate, or head over to our Youtube Channel - Taking Photos and Videos in PIM Cloud.

Getting Started

First expand the relevant Inspection Area or Sub Inspection Area. You can then either tap the Camera icon on the right-hand side or tap the Photos row — both options will open the camera window, ready for you to take your photos.

If you prefer to take your photos first and annotate them later, you can do so easily. Just navigate back to the inspection area where the photo was taken, tap the Photos row, select the thumbnail of the image, and then tap Edit to start annotating. This works for both photos taken within PIM and images imported from your device’s camera roll.

Once you tap Edit in the top-right corner, you’ll enter the annotation screen, where you can add symbols, lines, arrows, text, or even rotate your photo to make sure every detail is clearly highlighted.

Annotation Features Include:

1 - Tool selection: This allows you to select a tool you wish to use to markup/annotate the image.  This includes objects like (Arrow, Text, Line, and Rectangle)s and freehand drawing with the Pen, or select specific objects with the Selection tool or erase aspects of your annotations using the Eraser tool.

2 - Line Width: you can change the size of your object using this menu

3 - Colour Palette Menu:  select the colour of your object or drawing

4 - Redo

5 - Undo

6 - Done to save your annotated image

7 - Cancel

1. Tool menu

You need to tap the tool menu, which allows you to add a number of objects. ARROW: To add an arrow tap the Tool menu and tap Arrow, then place your finger on the screen and drag your finger to draw the arrow TEXT: Tap the Tool menu to change your selection to Text: Once you have typed the text you need to tap the screen (outside of the Text object) to save the text object LINE: Tap the Tool menu to change your selection to a Line: RECTANGLE: Tap the Tool menu to change your selection to Rectangle: All these objects (Arrow, Line, Text, Rectangle) can be changed in colour, size or position by tapping "Selection" and then tap the Line Width menu or Colour Palette menu PEN: The Pen tool is slightly different as it allows you to draw freehand on the image. To select the Pen tap the Tool menu and then select Pen: you can then freely draw on the image using the set Colour and Line Width. ERASER: The erase tool can be selected from the Tool menu and then used to delete part of or all of your annotations, it works like an eraser and you just rub your finger across the annotation you wish to delete. For whole deletions, it's easier for you to use the Undo function. Refer to option 5 or the half arrow on the far left of the Annotation toolbar

2. Width Tool

You can select the width for any of the Annotation objects before creating them, or if you want you can use the "Selection" option from the Tool menu to highlight the "Object" ie arrow, text, line, rectangle to enlarge the size of it.  (see below the dotted lines around the arrow as the selected object).

3. Colour menu

You can change the colour of your object (arrow, line, text, rectangle etc) by selecting your colour before creating it, or from the"Selection" and then tap on the Colour Palette and change the colour. To change the colour of your existing arrow, tap "Selection" (1) from the Tools option highlight the arrow (2), then tap the colour palette (3) and select the preferred colour The arrow is changed from yellow to red

4. Redo & 5. Undo

If you have made an error you can undo your last steps by tapping the "Undo" (5) option and if you change your mind revert it back by tapping "Redo" (4)

6. Done

Tap Done to save your changes, which takes you back to the camera screen,  then tap Use Photo and follow the on-screen prompts.

7. Cancel

To discard your annotations and revert back to your original photo taken just tap Cancel