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Location metadata on photographs

Hugh Hudson

I take most of my photos on a Samsung Android phone, and its camera app often takes individual photos that are over 5 MB each, and there is no longer an option to take them at lower resolution. The full size photos contain location metadata, but as soon as I use an app such as Windows Photos to reduce the resolution of the photos I want to upload, all of the metadata gets wiped out, so none of my photos can appear on the photos layer of the Slow Ways route maps. 

I am on a fairly low budget, so don't want to spend more than I have to, but I was wondering if you have tips on the best free or cheap resizing apps for Windows that preserve the metadata, preferably ones that allow bulk edits to be done quickly without an internet connection.

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Comments

18 comments

Date Votes
  • Cristie Moore

    That's a really interesting question.  I'll ask the team and see if anyone has a suggestion.

    Best wishes,
    Cristie

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  • Lynn Jackson
    Edited

    I’m afraid that this is a bit of a moot point Hugh. The photography layer has been removed (presumably replaced by the imagery/satellite layer) and so you can no longer view photos along the length of a route.

    This has only happened in the last couple of months.

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  • Cristie Moore

    Hi Lynn,

    Oh, I didn't know that.  When I look there is still a photo layer for a route. I found I could see them on Storom three.  I might be missing something though, so please let me know if it's a different place that is no longer showing the images?

    Hugh - we have had a couple of suggestions on what might work so I'll pop them here for you.

    Please let me know how you get on.

    Best wishes,
    Cristie

     

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  • Lynn Jackson

    Sorry Christie and Hugh - I was having a mini blindness! It’s at the bottom of the drop down legend. I was certain it was at the top!

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  • Cristie Moore

    Thanks Lynn, that's grand.  It could have changed so I thought I'd best check.  Glad it's still there.

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  • Hugh Hudson

    Thanks Cristie. Will have a look at Riot Optimiser, maybe tomorrow as I have another set to process from today's walk. My preference is definitely for doing it on the Windows side because folder management is much easier.

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  • Hugh Hudson

    OK. I managed to create a set of reduced files that still contain the metadate (good) and they display the right way up in Windows. Unfortunately, when I uploaded them to my review they appear on the site upside down (see my review of Slemet 1). Maybe I have been using the phone camera upside down when in landscape mode - if so it will be a hard habit to break….

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  • Hugh Hudson

    This is the review: https://beta.slowways.org/Route/Slemet/5441#reviews

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  • Hugh Hudson

    To answer my own question, my work-round is to rotate the photos so they appear upside down in Windows - then they magically correct themselves when uploaded. I have now fixed the picture in the Slemet review.

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  • Cristie Moore

    Thanks Hugh for persevering.  So glad the meta-data is now working for you.

    It would be interesting to know if anyone else has the issue around images upside down?  Then that would let us know if it's something we can fix.  Or maybe a setting on your phone camera?  I don't know enough but maybe others on the forum do?

    Best wishes,
    Cristie

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  • Hugh Hudson

    I did notice that the photos that uploaded upside down were also upside down when uploaded to Twitter/X, so I suspect the problem is something that Windows does with auto-rotation, and it doesn't affect photos without metadata. 

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  • Cristie Moore

    Oh, that's really interesting to know it happens elsewhere too.  Thanks for sharing.

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  • Dave C
    Edited

    Adobe Lightroom can resize in items free / unpaid version. 

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  • Daisy Cairns

    This sounds familiar, I think someone may have had a similar problem with upside down photos before. Perhaps after using a third party app to write notes / descriptions on photos. It was a long time ago though, not sure if it was ever resolved.

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  • Petr Sadilek

    If anyone is still monitoring this thread, can you give me a clue as how to actually add location to photos uploaded with a route review so that they would be visible on the “Photos” layer, please? I sometimes edit photos before uploading them, sometimes not but none of them are visible anywhere on the slow way in the map. 
    I'd like to be able to locate them so that the images would look like on https://beta.slowways.org/Route/Slemet/5441#reviews.
    Rotating the images by 180 degrees didn't make any difference. They were uploaded rotated and didn't show on the map with “Photos” layer on. It may be that my android phone does not store the precise location of photos. In which case, is there a way of adding a photo location manually?

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  • Lynn Jackson

    Hi Petr,

    When taking photos with a smart phone, the phone will automatically take GPS coordinates and add them to the photo provided you have permitted this happening in Settings. When you edit the photo these gps settings are removed. The way to add them back to the photo is to find the photo’s location on a map app (such as OS Maps), copy the gps coordinates from there and edit the photo then copy the coordinates into the location field in the photo.

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  • Petr Sadilek

    Thank you, Lynn. That was very helpful. After some more investigation, I found why my phone didn't save the location data. I needed to do the following:

    1) give the Camera app permissions to store location.

    2) go to Settings inside the Camera app and activate Store location option there.

    Alternatively, I found the following video Adding geolocation data to images or photos (youtube.com) that explains how to add precise GSP location to a picture file without any location tags. It is necessary to download and install geosetter program on the computer first. I succeeded in adding location data to a photo without it and when I uploaded it to a slow way review, it showed on the Photos layer.

    I've been reviewing slow ways for some time and haven't been aware of this. If I may have a couple of suggestions, it would be great if:
    1) the Photos layer was activated by default on a selected slow way.

    2) reviewers had the option to add latitude and longitude to their photo directly during an upload in case these coordinates are not attached to it already.

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  • Lynn Jackson

    If you check my reviews (Edaupp2 as an example) , I have instructions at the start of my reviews. But you are quite right, the instructions should be clearer regarding photos.

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