Jan Zdarsa If you've tried the new iPhoto 09 for organizing photos for the Leopard operating system, you couldn't help but notice the few new features use of geotagging (marking the place where the photo was taken). Perfect thing for vacation, you might have thought, but the iPhone is weak for taking pictures and my camera doesn't have a GPS chip. I won't buy a new digital one for this and do it manually? Phew.. too much work..
But if you have your iPhone in your pocket, you don't even have to think about manual geotagging. If you choose the right programs, you can add geotags to photos later, for example, when you come back from vacation.
The first important step, which will make it much easier, is to get it right set date and time on both iPhone and digital camera and also don't forget to set the correct time zone. If we neglect this step, thinking about and setting the time difference would complicate our later work.
After that, nothing prevents us from starting to take pictures. In order to add geotags to our photos later, we have to buy iPhone app, which can track our location and export the data to GPX. I chose it as one of the best for this job the Trails app.
In the application, you can create as many location tracking entries as you like. When adding, you set the name and description, and then nothing prevents you from pressing the button to record the location. Then the application according to your settings records the points where you have been. In the settings, you will find several profiles such as running, walking or driving. Here, it is already preset how often and with what accuracy the position must be recorded. Of course, you can also adjust this to your liking.
Of course the application quite squeezes the iPhone flashlight and so it is possible, for example, at lunch time or when you don't plan to take photos (or you only take photos in one building), to turn off location recording and thus make your iPhone lighter. There is no problem to continue recording where you left off. Of course, it is also recommended to turn off 3G, wi-fi and in short everything that we do not need at the moment.
This brings me to the biggest issue, which isn't so much about Trails as it is about the iPhone itself. Apple won't let it run any application in the background, so when you turn off the display, the application stops. It is therefore necessary to set autolock to "never" and reduce the brightness as much as possible to use the application. But there is a small trick. If you play some music in the iPhone player, the application will remain running even after the display is turned off!
The recorded route can then be viewed on the map directly in the Trails application thanks to Google Maps, it can be exported to the website EveryTrail.com or you just got it send by e-mail in a .GPX file, which we will use most often for our purposes.
Trails can do so much more. For example, you can import a route to explore a foreign city and you can check on the map if you are going well. You will also learn how many kilometers you walked or ran, how long it took and at what average speed.
Trails on the iPhone still very much is intensively developing and you won't regret your investment of only $2.99. I expect a lot more features to come in the future. And I'm not talking about super fast support, where you can design some other features yourself.
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So now we already have photos taken, an exported record of our journeys in a file with the GPX extension, but what about now best to connect? In the following part, I will deal with the program closest to me, which works under the MacOS operating system. But of course there are also variants for the Windows operating system, which I mention at the end of the article.
I chose the HoudahGeo application, which is used to add geotag data to EXIF photos. EXIF is a specification for a metadata format for digital photos in which just such data is stored. Working with the program is absolutely easy and anyone can do it.
In the program, you can select individual photos or take the entire directory, it's entirely up to you. In the next step, you decide how you will geotag your photos. You have a choice of 4 options – choose a location manually on the map, choose a location in Google Earth (also with altitude), use a GPS device such as Garmin or load the location from a file. We will choose the last option, when you let's load our GPX file from the Trails iPhone app.
If we have correctly set the date and time, including the time zone, in the iPhone and in the digital camera, then immediately after loading this GPX file, we will have ready photos with geotags. Now all you have to do is save the photos or you can also export them to Google Earth, to a KML file or to the Flickr service. In this program, you can tag your photos very quickly in 3 steps, which is excellent.
HoudahGeo supports iPhoto, Aperture 2 and Adobe Lightroom and, compared to its competitors, also supports different formats, in addition to JPEG, it can also TIFF or RAW formats. A great advantage of this program is the possible correction of times.
HoudahGeo you are you can try na houdahSoftware website, when you get a fully functional copy, which is limited only by the fact that only 5 photos can be exported at once. One license costs $30, but you can also buy HoudahGeo at student license for just $15! If you are interested in this software a little more, I recommend that you take a look at the very well done screencast.
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If you are looking for software for the operating system, I recommend looking at NDWGeoTag, for example, or rather at the program GeoSetter. At some point in the future I will of course try to look at HoudahGeo's competitors for Mac as well.
COMPETITION FOR FREE COPIES
As is almost the custom at 14205.w5.wedos.net, today I am bringing you a competition. This time there is a chance to win two copies of the Trails iPhone app and besides, there is a possibility also win the HoudahGeo app on Mac!
I won't bother you with any competition questions, but just write in the forum that you want to participate in the competition! But I would much prefer if you write here your experience with geotagging photos or possibly some comments that will help other users in the field of geo applications. Feel free to suggest any other application than Trails or HoudahGeo!
I will end the competition in Friday January 16th, 2009 at 23:59 pm. And if you are not interested in the Mac application, please write it in the comments so that I can give a chance to those who would use this great program!
hello, I'd like to join the competition :-) with geotagging, I'll have some experience :-/
Hello,
I would like to enter the contest, I was looking for a similar app and if I happen to win it, I wouldn't have to buy it :)
COMPETITION!!! :)
i don't want mac app :P
I like to travel and take photos.
I'm entering the competition!
i hope i win :)
I would like to participate in the trail application competition
Thanks,
chandler
Then I have an iPod Touch, but I'm looking forward to buying an iPhone with GPS. I have never worked with GPS before and I am very curious.
Hello, I would like to enter the competition. Otherwise, I belong to those who run around the cities and search. I mean, only occasionally. I came back to mac after a certain break only half a year ago and I still haven't had much time to get everything I need. But I need a GPS for my bike, I have a white ufon and a digital SLR camera at home. So the way I look, now all that's missing is a new iLife. Peter
I don't have experience with geotagging, and I haven't even thought about solving it, but I might take a look at it, it looks interesting. So I want to take part in the competition. Thanks
I will be happy to participate. He has no experience with geotagging yet, so this is a good way to change that :-)
No experience yet, but that's exactly why I like to join the competition.
I tried HoudahGeo now. It reads the data for me from the GPS and assigns it to the photo. But then when I let him write them in the photo, no geotags appear in the photo :( Does anyone know what could be wrong with this?
Otherwise, I would like to participate in the HoudahGeo contest.
I would also compete.
I have no experience with geotagging. So I tried it once. I used the GPSPhotoLinker program and it worked pretty well.
So, like Borek, I also tried GPSPhotoLinker. It's way better than HoudahGeo and it's free too. So take me out of the competition.
I read reviews on HoudahGeo on foreign websites and whether it is the best for geotagging. I'd love to compete!
Well, that's exactly for me. my favorite flickr also supports geotagging, but everything has to be entered manually.
And since I have 2G, I'm wondering if Trails takes location information from BTS as well?
I compete
Depending on the wash, I will bring it to an application other than Trails (I didn't try Trails then, so I can't judge - but the application looks decent). As freeware, you can download the Trailguru application, which works more or less the same as Trails (I just hope I'm not giving wrong information and this application was not freeware only temporarily ;)). But I'm happy to compete for any application ;)
Hello, I would like to enter the contest. I don't have experience with geotagging yet, but I would like to assign this information to my photos in some way. Considering the fact that I usually don't remember the places where we took the photos, this is a great way to find out after a few years where we actually took the photos. :-)
I would love to participate in the HoudahGeo contest. On the iPhone, I use GPS Tracker for similar purposes, but rather Path Tracker, which will probably serve similarly to Trails.
I have never used geotagging for photos, but I like Trails, and a Mac program would also be useful, so I would like to participate in competitions.
I'm signing up too :) maybe I'll win something this time :)
is there anything that can edit the complete EXIF and GPS coordinates in it? specifically delete them