Or whatever you call this software. I want to do a demonstration in class of how easy (I think) it is to grab locational data off of an uploaded photo that’s been geotagged, like what happened to the Mythbusters guy, and pinpoint the photo location on Google Maps or perhaps use my ArcGis software. Any recommendations for a light, safe and free program I can use and then easily delete?
Do you even need software? I think if you upload the picture to Google’s Picasaweb, it’ll show the location on a map to the right of the photo. In fact, it does this automatically if you have an Android phone – all your pictures automatically appear online, with location intact (but not visible to the world by default).
And IMHO: If this is a college class you’re talking about, geotagging isn’t really a surprising thing in the age of iPhones.
(And if you insist on having something to download, the regular Picasa desktop program has this feature as well. It’s free, light, and as safe as anything from Google is likely to be.)
If you have a smartphone you can probably find a low-cost (or even free) geotag reader that you can download for use on that. I just checked the Android market using the ketword “geotag” and found several.
That might work, Reply. As far as the class goes, they’re a mixed bag, and although I would be surprised if they were not aware of these features, I doubt more than a third of them makes the logical connections regarding safety. I’m not a paranoid freak about it, though. This is one small part of the lecture. BTW, if a photo is copied (digitally), is the metadata copied also?
(In response to sevenwood) No, I don’t have a smartphone, just a laptop.
In the case of a JPEG picture, usually yes – it’s embedded in the file itself. If you simply copy the file, the metadata will be retained. You can always double-check by right-clicking it and looking at its Properties. But if you resize it or recompress it or otherwise modify it, sometimes the editing program won’t re-save the metadata, so be careful.