Hi everyone, I have a photo of a family member and would like to know where it was taken. The normal date and time is there, my daughter said one can also trace the location. I would be very intetested to hear another opinion whether it is possible or not. Many thanks.
Hi Diana, I think it depends what camera it was taken with. Most camera phone photos contain some location information in them. If it's an non-GPS-enabled device, you could try a Google reverse image search to see if there are similar photos in the same location - but that would need a decent amount of the background to be visible and it might only work with touristy locations.
To see if there is GPS in the metadata, you can right-click on the photo in Windows and go to Properties. In the Details tab, scroll down to GPS. If there are coordinates in the lat/long fields, you can plug them into Google and see where it is.
If you use Google Photos, it will estimate where your picture was taken based on where Google thinks you were at the time that the picture is time stamped.
Location information is only a fraction of the possible information available. If you are a professional photographer you may be subject to encode specific metadata into your photos for submission for publication (like an AP photographer filing news stories and pics). As mentioned, many, if not all mobile phones capture GPS coordinate data. On some devices you can disable this data capture, and in many photo editing pieces of software you can strip it off either at the time of upload or export from the software (Lightroom allows for this feature).
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You seem to be so knowledgeable about this type of stuff, Mike, that I am going to ask you something.
Hubby tells me that I should watermark my photos so that they cannot be stolen or used but I think that watermarks are relatively easy to get around unless you put a rather large and obnoxious watermark across the whole photo.
My Nikon has the ability to copyright so I do that instead.
What are the pros and cons of each method?
@farmreporter I agree with you on the watermarks. I used to put them on but they are distracting. For all my pics I copyright them within the camera. I tend to post web pics in a reasonable size resolution but not to high since taking photos off the web means your taking 72dpi images and maybe a bit higher with retina displays. For pics you want to sell and make larger prints keep them as high a resolution as possible and print at 240 or 300dpi. Taking low res pics off the internet don't really print well so people usually won't steal them and re-print. Even with image blow-up type applications I don't find them of print quality.
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To see if there is GPS in the metadata, you can right-click on the photo in Windows and go to Properties. In the Details tab, scroll down to GPS. If there are coordinates in the lat/long fields, you can plug them into Google and see where it is.
Location information is only a fraction of the possible information available. If you are a professional photographer you may be subject to encode specific metadata into your photos for submission for publication (like an AP photographer filing news stories and pics). As mentioned, many, if not all mobile phones capture GPS coordinate data. On some devices you can disable this data capture, and in many photo editing pieces of software you can strip it off either at the time of upload or export from the software (Lightroom allows for this feature).
You seem to be so knowledgeable about this type of stuff, Mike, that I am going to ask you something.
Hubby tells me that I should watermark my photos so that they cannot be stolen or used but I think that watermarks are relatively easy to get around unless you put a rather large and obnoxious watermark across the whole photo.
My Nikon has the ability to copyright so I do that instead.
What are the pros and cons of each method?
Thank you, Mike - very informative!