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Explore frequently asked questions about Sideline.
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Which caption styles can Sideline generate?
Sideline delivers newsroom-standard captions out of the box, including AP, Getty, and Imagn styles—so every frame is ready for the publications and wire services you work with most.
How does Sideline identify players?
Sideline connects to your code replacements text file, so it already knows the rosters of the teams you're shooting. As soon as new images land in your watch folder, it matches images against those names, understands the play, and writes professional captions automatically.
How fast does Sideline caption my images?
Sideline runs quietly in the background, captioning every image as it hits your ingest folder. Since Sideline uses JPG previews ~0.25MB in size (even with RAW files), the average image takes ~2.5 seconds to caption.
Will Sideline fit into my existing workflow?
Yes. Set Sideline to watch your ingest folder and it writes captions straight to every file’s metadata. Sideline writes captions to industry-standard IPTC metadata files, so it can be used with any editing software you already use.
Building Code Replacements files takes a long time. Can Sideline do it for me?
Yes. Sideline's Roster Manager has more than 250,000 athletes from over 15,000 teams across 240 leagues from collegiate to professional sports. Plus, you can import team rosters directly from MaxPreps for high school sports. Have multiple photographers? You can easily export rosters to to share with your team.
Does it handle multiple sports and teams?
Absolutely. Sideline understands eleven popular sports out of the box – with more coming soon – and you can feed it as many rosters as you need—perfect for athletic departments, freelancers, and wire shooters covering multiple teams.
How does Sideline's FTP mode work?
Sideline’s FTP mode watches a remote FTP server. When new images are added, Sideline downloads and captions them automatically, so when you come in from halftime, your images are ready to edit and publish.
Can I tweak the captions before I publish?
Of course. Captions are written directly to the IPTC metadata, so you can review or fine-tune them directly within Sideline, Photo Mechanic, Lightroom, or any editor you already use—Sideline simply does the heavy lifting for you.
What’s included in the free trial?
Sideline's free trial gives you 500 AI-generated captions – no credit card required. It’s the fastest way to see Sideline in action on a real assignment before upgrading to lifetime access. For a full list of features available in a free trial, see the pricing section.
Is Sideline Captions a subscription?
Yes, Sideline is subscription-based software. However, we do offer a lifetime license for $249 for those who prefer to buy the software once and own it forever.
What are the system requirements?
Sideline Captions requires macOS 15.0+. While it can work independently, it is designed to be used in conjunction with Photo Mechanic software for the best experience.
Is there a Windows version available?
Sideline is macOS only for now, but we are actively working on a version of Sideline for Windows. We hope to release it in early 2026.