Adding GPS location to raw photos

I have a lot of travel photos taken on my DSLR that are missing the GPS location.  Having the location is handy for friends and family to see exactly where the photos were taken from.  Over time your own memory fades too.

Most of my photos are in raw format (Canon CR2), and I can use Picasa to set the GPS location, but only after the photos have been processed and saved as JPG (or TIFF etc).  If I add the location to the raw image, then it saves the location to metadata that only Picasa recognises.

If I go back and reprocess the raw photo, then the new JPG will have lost the location information.  What I needed was software that could add the location to the raw photo.

I looked around for alternate software, and did try a few things.  Usually they didn't work on raw files, or were just clunky to use.  Many applications are also designed for taking coordinates from GPS loggers - which I don't have.

Furthermore, I don't want to have to type in GPS coordinates directly, instead I should just be able search a map and let the software figure out the GPS coordinates.  This is specifically how the Picasa Places panel works.

I've now settled on using Exiftool, and Picasa to set the location.  It's still more clunky than it should be, but I'm able to use the software that I already had installed.

Note Picasa is discontinued by Google, but I'm sure you can still download it.  Additionally there are some quirks, and workarounds documented.

Raw GPS location setting workflow

My workflow is to use Picasa to set the location on the processed JPG file.  Then use Exiftool to copy the GPS exif data to the raw file.  I've used it with Canon CR2, but it should work with Nikon NEF, or DNG, or any other files supported by Exiftool.

This procedure requires that you have first performed conversion of the raw file to a JPG (or TIFF etc).  Find and select the processed file in Picasa.

Open the Places panel if not already open.

If you need more space you can also make the panel larger.

Set the location of the image, by searching and then moving the position marker to the correct location.  You can use the Map or Satellite view to help you pinpoint the right spot.

The GPS coordinates will now be saved to the Exif (Exchangeable image file format) properties in the JPG file.  You can view the GPS Latitude/Longitude details in Picasa under the Properties panel.

At this point the JPG file has the GPS location, but the original raw file does not.

Open a Command Prompt shell.  Use the exiftool command to copy the GPS location from the JPG file to the raw file.  For example:
exiftool -TagsFromFile IMG_6022.JPG -gps:all IMG_6022.CR2
    1 image files updated
Note, by default  exiftool  will backup the original file - just in case something goes wrong.  In this case the original file is named IMG_6022.CR2_original.  Once you're satisfied the new raw file is alright, you may remove the backup.

After Picasa refreshes the thumbnails you'll see that the GPS location is also set on the raw file.

In addition, any other software (including Capture One Pro shown here) will recognise the GPS location information in the raw file Exif.

If you upload the image to Google Photos then it will show the location as a place name, GPS coordinates, and a preview map.  Clicking on the map will take you to Google Maps.

I hope you find that workflow helpful.

Batch GPS location processing

If you have a lot of files, the above process to set the GPS location on raw files can be a tedious process.

However, if you have a Unix background, you can use tools available in Cygwin to perform batch processing.

For example, this command assumes that every JPG file in the current directory has a corresponding CR2 file to transfer the GPS coordinates to.
$ ls *.JPG | cut -d. -f 1 | xargs -i sh -c "exiftool -TagsFromFile '{}'.JPG -gps:all '{}'.CR2"
TIP: Remember that Cygwin is case sensitive.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Resolving FOSCAM connection dropouts

Image
I bought a FOSCAM FI8908W wireless IP webcam off eBay recently. It has lots of features for the price. However, I've had problems with being unable to connect to the camera after a period of time (an hour or so). Power cycling the camera would fix the problem. I've tried upgrading to the latest firmware (version 11.14.2.17 is supposed to fix WiFi disconnection problems), but it did not fix my problem. Problem analysis The problem is not related to my browser or the wireless network. I've tried disabling DHCP (router based static IP). It turns out the problem is that the webcam simply ceases to respond to ARP  (Address Resolution Protocol) requests (once in this broken state). ARP is a mechanism to translate between IP addresses and device MAC addresses. It underpins all IP communications over both Ethernet and WiFi, since at the lowest level it relies on exchange of packets between device MAC addresses. The ARP protocol allows a network device to discover t
Read more

Building an automatic chicken door opener

Image
We recently got chickens and found them to be noisy in the morning because they wanted to be let out of their coop.  Of course, we just wanted to sleep in.  What we needed was an automatic door opener. Here's our 3 hens (Edna, Dora and the bantam Dotty).  Click for more photos. Here's the chicken coop, with the addition of an automatic door opener.  The chicken coop was purchased from Pets Station . There are some (expensive) automatic chicken doors that are available for purchase, but I decided to design and make my own.  You are welcome to copy or adapt the design to suit your own requirements.
Read more

TVersity media serving to the Astone AP-300

Image
TVersity is a digital media server that can share media over your home network using UPnP/DNLA. This is kind-of like Windows file sharing/SMB, except that a digital media server can be a lot smarter.  You get access to traditional media such as picture, audio or movie files, like you would through network file sharing.  TVersity though can take things further, supporting: On-the-fly transcoding of media into a format suitable for your media player, Downloading content from the Internet, Streaming media as it is being downloaded or transcoded, Tagging of media to present a smarter content view instead of just a traditional directory structure, Improved network performance compared with normal network file sharing.  I'm able to stream 1080p video rather than having to copy it to the internal HDD My media player is a Astone AP-300 and is similar to many others in that it has network connectivity, HD video support, and of-course acts as a UPnP Media Player/Renderer. It s
Read more