How to Add Geotags to Your Picasa Photos
Geotagging photos is the process whereby photos are linked to geographical locations with latitude and longitude coordinates. There are many different software programs that offer geotag capabilities, such as Google Earth, which is a virtual globe program that maps our planet's land and buildings with satellite, aerial and other images of the planet. Google Earth has a free version with limited features. Picasa is a software program owned by Google Earth that allows users to store, organize and edit their digital images. The name is a combination of Picasso, the famous Spanish painter; the Spanish phrase "mi casa," meaning my house; and pic, which is short for pictures. Utilizing both Google's Picasa and Google Earth software, you can geotag your photos and images to many locations around the world.
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Instructions
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1
Download and install the latest versions of Picasa (3.0 and later) and Google Earth (4.3.7 and later) onto your computer. Earlier versions of Picasa and Google Earth do not have geotag capabilities, so it's best to install the latest versions.
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2
Load Picasa and open a photo or a folder into Picasa. Go up to "File" and choose "Add Folder to Picasa" or "Add File to Picasa," depending on the number of photos you want to geotag. The File Manager pops up; navigate to the folder on which the photos are located, choose "Scan Once" on the right side and click "OK." Picasa scans the folder and adds each photo to a folder on Picasa.
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3
Choose a photo to geotag. On the left side of the main Picasa window, find "Folders" and highlight the folder with the photos from Step 2. The folder photos open on the right side. Highlight a photo to geotag, go up to "Tools," scroll down to "Geotag" and choose "Geotag With Google Earth." Google Earth loads with the photo in a box on the lower right.
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Find the geographic location in Google Earth to geotag the photo to it. There are several ways to do this, but the simplest way is to go to the "Fly To" tab under the "Search" section of Google Earth (left side), enter the address of the location into the box and click the search button. I find that the street address followed by the zip code takes me to the location the quickest. Move the crosshairs to target the specific location to place the photo.
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5
Geotag the photo. Go to the photo on the lower right and click "Geotag," then "Done." The photo appears as a tiny thumbnail on the Google Earth location. Hover over the thumbnail with the cursor to see a larger thumbnail, and click on it to see a large version of the photo. The geotag is temporary and only exists on your computer. To make it permanent, go to the "Places" section on the middle left side of Google Earth, scroll down to the photo under "Temporary Places" and drag it up a few lines to "My Places."
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