Today’s Question: In this past Friday’s “Ask Tim Grey” you made reference to the ability to view GPS coordinates in metadata. If I’m not using an application like Lightroom that allows me to view my photos on the map, how can I make use of the GPS coordinates to know where I captured the photo?
Tim’s Quick Answer: The GPS coordinates stored in metadata for camera’s that include a GPS receiver are latitude and longitude coordinates, and you can very easily view a specific location on a map using a service such as Google Maps by copying and pasting the coordinates into the search for the map.
More Detail: Among other options, you can use Google Maps to view the location for the GPS coordinates stored in metadata for an image. Simply select the coordinates from the GPS field in metadata, and then visit the Google Maps website at http://maps.google.com. Paste the GPS coordinates into the search field and press Enter/Return on the keyboard, and the map will be centered on the location represented by the coordinates you copied from metadata.
To be sure, it is much simpler to browse an entire collection of photos on the map using applications such as Lightroom or the Photoshop Elements Organizer. But the GPS coordinates saved to metadata when you are using a camera with a built-in GPS receiver can be used in a variety ways to determine the specific location where you captured a given photo.