HoudahGeo 7: A Complete Photo Metadata and Geocoding Workflow

This screencast tutorial, hosted by Todd Oltoff for Screencasts Online, walks through the full feature set of HoudahGeo 7, a macOS application by Houdah Software designed to add location data and metadata to photos.

The presenter argues that geocoding is an often-neglected step in photography workflows, one that photographers frequently regret skipping. HoudahGeo addresses this by organizing its interface around three sequential phases: Load, Process, and Output.

Loading Photos

HoudahGeo offers several methods for importing photos. The most direct is connecting a camera or SD card reader, which can be configured to automatically trigger the application’s import window. The import dialog lets users choose a destination folder, organize files into subfolders by date, assign photos to a project, and optionally delete images from the card after transfer. Alternative import paths include a standard file browser for photos already on disk and a built-in media browser that surfaces images from the Photos app, Adobe Lightroom Classic, and local folders. The presenter notes an important caveat for Photos app users: it will write the metadata to the Photos database, but it won’t write it to the file itself, making it preferable to geocode original files before importing them into Photos.

GPS Data and Camera Clock Accuracy

A central feature is the ability to import a GPX track log recorded by a separate GPS device carried during a shoot. HoudahGeo cross-references the timestamps on each photo against the recorded track to automatically assign latitude, longitude, and altitude. The presenter demonstrates this with photos taken at Mono Lake, where the imported GPX file places each image precisely along the walked route and even renders the track visually on an embedded map. For this to work reliably, the camera clock must be accurate. The Camera Setup tool accepts a reference photo, allows manual time correction, or can cross-reference a GPX file to calculate and compensate for clock drift or time zone mismatches.

Processing: Multiple Geocoding Methods

The Process phase consolidates several geocoding approaches. Beyond the GPX track log method, users can geocode from a reference photo, applying the coordinates of one image to nearby shots based on temporal proximity (preceding, following, or nearest). A great-circle geocoding option handles aerial photography, and a Google Earth integration lets users manually drag and pinpoint a photo location on the globe. HoudahGeo will determine what that is and track that and add in your metadata for location.

There is also support for dive log data and weather data metadata for specialized use cases. Reverse geocoding uses a downloadable offline GeoNames database to convert raw coordinates into human-readable fields such as city, state, country, and ISO code. An altitude lookup tool can fill in missing elevation data using GeoNames when a GPS device only recorded latitude and longitude.

A Places system allows users to save frequently visited locations, group them into folders, and apply them to photos in bulk. Beyond location, the metadata panel lets users add titles, descriptions, keywords, creator credits, and copyright information. The presenter notes that copyright data had already been written by the camera itself, demonstrating that HoudahGeo reads and respects pre-existing EXIF data.

Output Options

The Output phase writes the accumulated metadata back to files. Users can target all photos, only geocoded ones, flagged items, or a manual selection. The application handles RAW/JPEG pairs and supports XMP sidecar files as an alternative to embedding data directly. A separate notification step updates the Apple Photos library database for images that were originally imported there.

The export options extend further: a KMZ export for Google Earth Pro renders all geocoded photos with their track log overlaid on a 3D globe, and there are additional CSV and GPX export formats for use in spreadsheet tools or other applications. The tutorial closes with the presenter summarizing HoudahGeo 7 as a capable starting point for an entire photo workflow, with its load-process-output structure making it accessible even for photographers new to metadata management.