How do I align the caption of these two pictures in my minipage at same `height´?

Question

It might be a silly question, but it is bothering me that I cannot fix it at the moment.

\medskip   
\begin{figure}[h]  
\begin{minipage}{.3\textwidth}  
  \centering  
  \includegraphics[scale=0.2]{bilayer.JPEG}  
  \medskip  
  \caption{3D illustration of the membrane of the polymersome, which consists of a   hydrophillic bilayer at the in- and outside of the biodegradable aliphatic core. This   membrane protects the aqueous core from the environment.}  
  \label{bilayer}  
\end{minipage}%  
\begin{minipage}{0.7\textwidth}  
  \centering  
  \includegraphics[scale=1.5]{polymersome.JPEG}  
  \caption{Schematic view of polymersome \cite{polymersome1}}  
  \label{polymersome}  
\end{minipage}  
\end{figure}%  

At the moment it looks like this..

Thanks for the help!

Answer 1

You can use two sets of side-byu-side minipages; the top set has b (bottom) alignment for the images and the second set has t (top) alignment for the captions:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{caption}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}
\captionsetup{justification=raggedright}  
\begin{minipage}[b]{.3\textwidth}  
  \centering  
  \includegraphics[scale=0.2]{example-image-a}  
\end{minipage}%  
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.7\textwidth}  
  \centering  
  \includegraphics[scale=0.15]{example-image-b}  
\end{minipage}
\par
\begin{minipage}[t]{.3\textwidth}
  \caption{3D illustration of the membrane of the polymersome, which consists of a   hydrophillic bilayer at the in- and outside of the biodegradable aliphatic core. This   membrane protects the aqueous core from the environment.}  
  \label{bilayer}  
\end{minipage}%
\begin{minipage}[t]{.7\textwidth}  
  \caption{Schematic view of polymersome \cite{polymersome1}}  
  \label{polymersome}  
\end{minipage}  
\end{figure}

\end{document}

Remarks

• I added

  \captionsetup{justification=raggedright}
  

  from the caption package so the narrow caption looks better, but this is just a suggestion; instead of this you could increase the width for the left-hand-side minipages (decreasing that from the right-hind-side, of course).

• Using [h] as placement specifier is a recipe for disaster. Either use something less restrictive, as [htp], or better yet, don't use the placement specifier at all.

Answer 2

Use the floatrow package:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx,floatrow}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}[ht]
  \begin{floatrow}[2]
    \ffigbox{
      \caption{3D illustration of the membrane of the polymersome, which consists of a 
        hydrophillic bilayer at the in- and outside of the biodegradable aliphatic core. This 
        membrane protects the aqueous core from the environment.\label{fig:first}}
      }{\includegraphics[scale=0.2]{example-image-a}}
    \ffigbox[\FBwidth]{
      \caption{Schematic view of polymersome.\label{fig:second}}
      }{\includegraphics[scale=0.3]{example-image-b}}
  \end{floatrow}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

The interface is slightly different than your regular usage of graphics inclusion and captions, but it interfaces well with caption and float, and allows for easy styling of either component.