There is a variety of applications built around geotagging needs, ranging from taggers and viewers to community integration. The following compilation highlights the more notable or promising candidates, both Mac-specific and OS-independent.
Stand-Alone Applications
For tagging purposes, it makes sense to work with desktop applications that can handle a large amount of files and data. Most of the programs listed below will make it into our upcoming reviews:
- Apple’s iPhoto from iLife ’09 | Mac
- Google’s Picasa | Mac & Windows
- HoudahGeo | Mac (EDITOR’S CHOICE)
- Early Innovation’s GPSPhotoLinker | Mac
- MMI Software’s PhotoInfoEditor and PhotoGPSEditor | Mac
- Ovolab’s GeoPhoto | Mac
- Calf Trail’s Mercatalog | Mac
- iCraig’s GeoTagger | Mac
- JetPhoto Studio | Mac & Windows
- GiSTEQ PhotoTrackr Mac | Mac & Windows
- Dirk Stichling’s myTracks | Mac
- Andreas Schneider’s Geotag | Java (OS-independent)
The geotagging solution Magrathea has been bought by App4Mac.com – they announced that it will be re-issued under a different name. CDFinder offers a proximity search functionality for its collections, while it suggests third party solutions for geotagging.
Plugins
The Maperture plugin by Übermind is an essential geotagging accessory for Aperture users.
Übermind’s Maperture Plugin for Apple Aperture offers an intuitive way to geotag images from inside Aperture. The obvious advantage is its integration with its host program, so that you don’t have to leave your favourite image management application. Although it doesn’t support log-based workflows and it lacks altitude values, it is a definite recommendation for Aperture users, as it gets full points for smoothness and a high rating for reliability.
Unfortunatly, there is not yet a similarly well developed solution for Adobe Lightroom. There are some clever plugins developed by Jeffrey Friedl, but they are built around log-based workflows only and they’re still a far cry from the smoothness we are looking for (especially the concept of “shadow” GPS data will not fit with the imperative of travelling standards).
Expert Tools
ExifTool can be used in Automator actions for specific tasks that are not offered by your favourite imaging application. Here, it writes the EXIF date into the IPTC date field.
For writing location data there is Phil Harvey’s ExifTool, the Swiss army knife when it comes to metadata modifications (EXIF, IPTC, XMP etc.). In fact it sits at the core of many other applications for that purpose, but takes some command line knowledge to work. It also does a great job in more specific Automator actions (for more details, see my post on this subject).
Maps & Helpers
For visualising geo locations there are the obvious Google Earth and Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, Microsoft’s Live Search Maps, but also EarthBrowser or the community-driven OpenStreetMap project. But those are not too helpful when it comes to identifying exact coordinates. For this purpose, there are sites like Yuan.CC maps, Topocoding API or – the most complete service I have found – EarthTools. I have also created a little live map helper based on Google Maps that displays longitude, latitude and altitude for any given location.
Earthtools.org offers a comprehensive set of tools for geotagging and geocoding purposes. Coordinates can be retrieved accurately with the aid of crosshairs.
Communities
Most notably there are the ubiquitious online image archives of Flickr, Google’s Panoramio or Picasa that support and encourage geotags. Loc.alize.us provides a map-based access to Flickr images around the world, by proximity, tags or buddy names.
Updates
This article will be updated continously.
- March 9th, 2009: added loc.alize.us
- March 23rd, 2009: added reference to my own live map helper
- April 18th, 2009: new introduction, test candidates included in listing of stand-alone apps
- October, 5th, 2009: added Google Picasa for Mac
Tags: Geotagging, Software