Align text and image on the same line?

Since you mention the need to precisely position the text, may I suggest using TikZ? Here's an example that uses one node for the image, and two nodes placed using the positioning library to have a horizontal gap of 5 mm to the image, with their vertical centers positioned 5 mm and 23 mm below the top of the image:

The image is taken from Wikipedia

\documentclass[twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage{tikz,lipsum}
\usetikzlibrary{positioning}
\begin{document}

\lipsum[1]

{
\raggedleft
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node (bottle) {\includegraphics{normflasche}};
\node [left=0.5cm of bottle.north west, yshift=-5mm] {Cap};
\node [left=0.5cm of bottle.north west, yshift=-23mm] {Pearls};
\end{tikzpicture}

}

\lipsum[2-6]
\end{document}

Development Phase

Production Phase

Source Code

\documentclass[twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage{graphicx,lipsum,pst-node}

\begin{document}

\lipsum[1]

\noindent
\begin{center}
{
\endlinechar=-1\relax

\newsavebox\IBox
\savebox\IBox{\includegraphics[width=0.5\linewidth]{hen.jpg}}

\newdimen\WIDTH\WIDTH=\linewidth
\newdimen\HEIGHT\HEIGHT=1\ht\IBox

\psset
{
    xunit=0.1\WIDTH,
    yunit=0.1\HEIGHT,
    nodesep=5pt,
    style=gridstyle
}



\pspicture(\WIDTH,\HEIGHT)

% put figure 
\rput[bl]
    (
        \dimexpr\WIDTH-\wd\IBox\relax,
        \dimexpr\HEIGHT-\ht\IBox\relax
    ){\usebox\IBox}

% add an annotation to mouth
\pnode(0.6\WIDTH,0.8\HEIGHT){a}

\rput[rt](0.4\WIDTH,0.8\HEIGHT)
    {
        \rnode[r]{A}{Mouth}
    }
\ncline[linecolor=blue]{->}{A}{a}

% add an annotation to feet
\pnode(0.7\WIDTH,0.1\HEIGHT){b}

\rput[rt](0.4\WIDTH,0.5\HEIGHT)
    {
        \rnode[r]{B}{Feet}
    }
\ncline[linecolor=blue]{->}{B}{b}

% turn of this grid in the production phase!
%\psgrid
\endpspicture
}
\end{center}

\lipsum[2-4]
\end{document}