How can I make a series of images (with some text) flow with minimal whitespace?

Question

I'm trying to create a LaTeX document that contains mostly images (but occasionally some text after an image). I currently have the following in the preamble:

\def \ifempty#1{\def\temp{#1} \ifx\temp\empty }

\newcommand{\image}[2]{
    \ifempty{#2}
        \begin{figure}[H]
            \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{#1}
        \end{figure}
    \else
        \begin{figure}[H]
            \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{#1}
            \caption*{\textit{\Large{#2}}}
        \end{figure}
    \fi
}

and then when I add an image I use:

\image{imageName}{optionalText}

This inserts a lot of whitespace in between images. What I want is for each image to be right after the next unless the image cannot fit on the page, in which case a new page is created (basically, I want the images to flow the same way anything else would by default).

I have tried changing the [H] option on the caption as suggested in this question as well as tried out various suggestions from OverLeaf as well as this WikiBooks article, but have been unable to get the images to flow properly.

How can I get images to flow normally?

Answer 1

\def \ifempty#1{\def\temp{#1} \ifx\temp\empty }

always adds a space token to the output each time you use it, you intended

\def \ifempty#1{\def\temp{#1}\ifx\temp\empty }

However it is not generally safe to define an \if this way as it is a macro not a tex \if.. so will not work naturally if combined with other if for example

\iffalse
  \ifempty{}
    yes
   \else
    no
   \fi
\fi

Looks well nested but the \ifempty will not be seen as an if so \iffalse will match the \else typeset no and the second \fi will generate an error.

For your main macro I would omit the figure environments that are just adding vertical space.

\newcommand{\image}[2]{% 
  \par
   \noindent
   \begin{minipage}{\textwidth}%
            \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{#1}%
  \par
   {\Large\itshape #2\par}%
   \end{minipage}%
  \par
}

with this form you don't need to test for #2 being empty as it will do nothing in that case.