Today’s Question: What is the benefit of creating a saved location in the Map module in Lightroom Classic? If my photos already have location metadata, why would I want to save a location on the list rather than just refer to the info in metadata for the photos?
Tim’s Quick Answer: The Saved Locations feature for the Map module in Lightroom Classic provides an easy way to quickly navigate to locations on the map you might want to reference more frequently, even when you aren’t currently browsing photos that were captured in that location.
More Detail: On the left panel in the Map module in Lightroom Classic there is a “Saved Locations” section, and you can click the plus symbol (+) to the right of that heading to create a new saved location. You can give the location a name, adjust the radius of the area, and move the circle representing the location on the map. This can be used to effectively put a ring around photos on the map that were captured in a particular area.
To me the primary reason to create a Saved Location is to create a shortcut that makes it easy to navigate to a particular location on the map regardless of which photos you’re currently browsing.
When you hover the mouse pointer over a saved location in the Saved Locations list a right-pointing arrow will appear to the right of the count of how many photos were captured within that location. You can click that arrow to quickly navigate to the position on the map represented by that saved location. The saved location also provides a visual indication of the position on the map, which can be helpful.
Of course, you could always click on the GPS location metadata badge on the thumbnail of a photo to navigate to the position on the map represented by that location metadata. You can also use the search field at the top-right of the map to search by location name. However, for locations on the map that represent photos you may like to review in that context relatively frequently, it can be helpful to create saved locations for that purpose.
I also find that simply having a saved location on the list sometimes reminds me of photos I may want to consider using for a particular project. So, saved locations can be helpful in the context of photos for which the location you captured them is meaningful or serves as a good reminder of the photos you captured there.
