Eighty-five percent of social video is watched with the sound off. Your captions are your video. Here's how to get them right.
Pick the right style
- Minimal — small white text, no fill. Pairs with cinematic, polished content. Doesn't fight the footage.
- Bold — chunky text with a soft drop-shadow. The safe default for talking heads.
- Kinetic — words pop in one at a time with subtle bounces. Highest retention on TikTok and Reels.
- Karaoke — full sentence with a moving highlight on the current word. Best for music videos and slower content.
- Subtle — soft cream text on a soft cream background. Beautiful for moody, atmospheric work.
Highlight colour
The highlight colour is the small block behind your current word. Use it to match your brand or your content's mood:
- Peach / amber — warm, indie, friendly.
- Mint / meadow — wellness, lifestyle, calm.
- Lavender — beauty, fashion, dreamy.
- Rose — feminine, romance.
Position
Default Bottom works for most content. Switch to Middle for hero shots where you want the caption to feel like a graphic, not a subtitle. Top only works on vertical platforms where your subject is in the lower two-thirds.
Size
On vertical phone video, default to M. Use L only when the caption is the focal point (single-word reveals). S is for landscape and YouTube long-form.
Emoji suggestions
Lumen can sprinkle subtle emojis per phrase, matched to the meaning. Turn this on for casual, high-energy content and off for documentary or business.
Languages
Lumen captions in 30+ languages. If your audio is in English but you want Spanish captions, run AI Dub first to produce Spanish audio, then generate captions on the dubbed video.