Captioning side by side figures

Question

I need to get two figures side by side and I am using the following code:

\begin{figure} [H]
\centering
\begin{subfigure}{0.49\textwidth}
\centering
\includegraphics[width = \textwidth]{1e4}
\caption{Combined figure}
\label{fig:left}
\end{subfigure}
\begin{subfigure}{0.49\textwidth}
\centering
\includegraphics[width = \textwidth]{1e3}
\caption{Right figure}
\label{fig:right}
\end{subfigure}
\end{figure}

However, I need to caption each figure independently. How can this be done?

Answer 1

You can use minipages inside the figure environment with a caption command for each figure:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage{graphicx}

\begin{document}

As you can see in figs.~\ref{fig:left} and \ref{fig:right} \dots

\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{minipage}{0.49\textwidth}
\centering
\includegraphics[width = \textwidth]{example-image-a}
\caption{Left figure}
\label{fig:left}
\end{minipage}
\begin{minipage}{0.49\textwidth}
\centering
\includegraphics[width = \textwidth]{example-image-b}
\caption{Right figure}
\label{fig:right}
\end{minipage}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

Answer 2

It's easy to do with the floatrow package, which is is dedicated to that, cooperates with the caption package:

\documentclass[a4paper, 11pt]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{floatrow}

\DeclareFloatVCode{rowsep}{\vskip 5ex}

\begin{document}



\begin{figure} [H]
  \centering\floatsetup{floatrowsep = qquad, rowpostcode = rowsep}
  \begin{floatrow}
    \ffigbox[\FBwidth]{\caption{For the Snarks were Boojums, you see…}\label{fig:left}}
    {\includegraphics[width = 0.48\textwidth]{snark.png}}
    %%%%
    \ffigbox[\FBwidth]{\caption{A Portrait of a distinguished author}\label{fig:right}}
    {\includegraphics[width = 0.48\textwidth]{Charles-Dodgson}}
  \end{floatrow}

\begin{floatrow}
\ffigbox[\FBwidth]
{\includegraphics[scale = 0.8]{sendak}}
{\caption{Where Wild Things are} \label{fig:Maurice}}
\ffigbox[\FBwidth]
{\includegraphics[scale = 0.5]{AliceSteadman}}
{\caption{Ralph} \label{fig:Wabbit}}
\end{floatrow}
\end{figure}

\end{document}