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Tag: Location

Getting Camera Time Right to Match Photos with GPS Track Logs

Have you ever tried to match photos with a GPS track log and ended up with pictures placed miles away from where they were taken. If your photos don’t line up with your GPS track log, or show up in the wrong place on the map, the camera clock is almost always the reason.

You might have been standing at a scenic overlook… but your photos show up a few steps or streets away—or even in the wrong city entirely. That’s not a GPS problem. It’s a camera time problem.

HoudahGeo matches photos to locations by comparing photo timestamps with GPS track logs. If those timestamps are even slightly off, the resulting locations will be too.

The Camera Setup window in HoudahGeo 7 exists for one reason: helping HoudahGeo understand how your camera recorded time. Once that’s clear, HoudahGeo can accurately match your photos to GPS track points and place them on the map exactly where they belong.

Camera Clock Setup: Fast and Easy Way to Perfect GPS Sync

At first glance the window might look technical. In reality, it’s solving a very practical problem most photographers run into sooner or later — usually right after their first trip where they forgot to update the camera clock.

Here’s how each part works, and a few tips to make it go smoothly.

Continue reading Getting Camera Time Right to Match Photos with GPS Track Logs

Photos Workbench 1.6: Faster Photo Curation for Apple Photos

We’re happy to announce Photos Workbench 1.6, a performance-focused update that makes organizing and curating your photo library faster and more reliable.

If you use Photos Workbench alongside Apple Photos, this update improves the everyday workflows that matter most: browsing large libraries, comparing similar shots, and quickly identifying your best photos.

This release also follows closely on the heels of another major update: HoudahGeo 7.1, which introduced viewing direction and map improvements. Together, these updates continue our mission of making photo management on the Mac faster, clearer, and more enjoyable.

Photos Workbench for Apple Photos: Compare Photos Side by side
Compare photos, cull, and curate your Apple Photos library

Let’s look at what’s new.

Continue reading Photos Workbench 1.6: Faster Photo Curation for Apple Photos

HoudahGeo 7.1: Viewing Direction Comes to the Built-In Map

We are pleased to announce the release of HoudahGeo 7.1, a focused update that delivers one of the most requested features: visualization of viewing direction on the built-in map.

This release also:

  • improves map behavior with an off-screen target indicator
  • adds location coordinates copy & paste support from Apple Photos
  • introduces a French localization
  • and significantly reduces memory usage for photo previews.

Viewing direction indicator

    HoudahGeo 7.1 – viewing direction visualized on built-in map

Continue reading HoudahGeo 7.1: Viewing Direction Comes to the Built-In Map

HoudahGeo 7.0 Video Tutorial

Todd Oltoff over at ScreenCastsOnline just published a full walkthrough of HoudahGeo 7, and it’s one of the more thorough tutorials we’ve seen of the app.

ScreenCastsOnline has been around for over 17 years and has built a solid reputation as a go-to resource for Apple software tutorials.

Their video goes through the entire HoudahGeo workflow from start to finish — loading photos from a camera or SD card, syncing a GPX track log to place images on a map, reverse geocoding coordinates into actual place names, and writing everything back to your files (or XMP sidecars, if you prefer).

Continue reading HoudahGeo 7.0 Video Tutorial

Introducing HoudahGeo 7.0: Geotagging Photos and Videos Has Never Been Easier

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of HoudahGeo 7.0 — the biggest update ever to our flagship geotagging solution for Mac.

Since its debut in 2007, HoudahGeo has helped photographers and travelers document their journeys by adding precise GPS location data to their photos. With version 7.0, HoudahGeo steps into a new era: it’s now also your go-to tool for video geotagging.

Whether you’re a photographer, filmmaker, or digital storyteller, HoudahGeo 7.0 gives you powerful tools to build a location-aware media library that goes beyond still images.

🎥 Geotag Videos Alongside Photos

This is the #1 feature request we’ve received — and it’s finally here: video geotagging.

You can now tag your travel videos with GPS coordinates just as easily as photos. Whether you’re working with drone footage, action cams, or smartphone videos, HoudahGeo 7.0 helps you enrich your entire collection with meaningful location data.

HoudahGeo 7 main window
Documenting a Kilimanjaro trek with HoudahGeo 7

Continue reading Introducing HoudahGeo 7.0: Geotagging Photos and Videos Has Never Been Easier

Non-Recursive Search: Find Top-Level Files Only

HoudahSpot searches “recursively” descend into subfolders: results will include files from the folder where you are searching as well as files from folders nested within that folder.

In HoudahSpot you can list folders where you want to search. You can also exclude folders (and their subfolders) from the search: just drag the folder from the breadcrumb path at the bottom of the HoudahSpot window to the Locations/Exclude list.

In most cases, you want search results to include nested items. You have organized your files in a folder hierarchy and are using a search tool to find files anywhere in a folder tree of related files.

Sometimes you want to see only results from the top-level folder. You can repeat the above procedure to exclude more folders. Excluding all subfolders, one by one would be tedious. We will use a filter instead. Continue reading Non-Recursive Search: Find Top-Level Files Only

Efficient File Searches using Filters

HoudahSpot uses the Spotlight index maintained by macOS. This allows for lightning-fast file searches and enables HoudahSpot to find all kinds of files by name, text content, and metadata.

Spotlight does have its limitations. Some of these affect HoudahSpot. While HoudahSpot lets you combine any number of search criteria to hone in on specific files, you however cannot find or exclude files by their path.

You can, of course, use HoudahSpot to search in multiple folders at once. HoudahSpot also allows you to exclude folders from your search.

Screenshot: Smart Folder Exclusion
Multiple search locations. Smart exclusion

You do, however, need to list the folders you want to search or exclude. Since the Spotlight index does not know about file paths, you cannot set up a criterion on file paths.

For example, you cannot configure a search to ignore all files where some parent folder is named Temporary. You’d need to explicitly list all such Temporary folders.

Fortunately, HoudahSpot can filter search results to hide unwanted results. A single filter can prevent all Temporary files from cluttering up your file search.

Continue reading Efficient File Searches using Filters

What’s New in HoudahGeo 6.1?

HoudahGeo 6.1 builds upon last year’s HoudahGeo 6 release to bring you the most comprehensive photo geocoding and geotagging solution for Mac.

KESTREL Weather Log Files

HoudahGeo 6 can add weather information – ambient temperature, air pressure, and humidity – to your photos. Such data can be recorded using KESTREL Drop devices. HoudahGeo 6.1 adds support for more variants of the KESTREL CSV log file format.

Weather Data From GPX Files

Some GPS devices can record weather information along with tracklogs. HoudahGeo 6.1 can now read weather data from GPX files that use the Garmin TrackPointExtension format to store such data.

Scuba Dive Data From GPX Files

HoudahGeo 6 can add scuba diving information like depth below water to your photos. Typically this information is obtained from UDDF dive log files.

Some dive computers and dive logging software can create GPX tracklog files. HoudahGeo 6.1 can now dive log data from GPX files that use the Garmin TrackPointExtension format to store such data.

Apple Aperture on macOS Catalina and Big Sur

HoudahGeo now works with Aperture versions modified by Retroactive to run on recent versions of macOS. Read more…

Further Enhancements

Adobe Lightroom: HoudahGeo now supports Lightroom libraries set up with symbolic links to preview files.

Apple Photos: HoudahGeo now reads malformed XMP sidecar files created by the Export Originals function of the Apple Photos application.

Performance: HoudahGeo 6.1 improves performance when working with large projects.

Window Layout: HoudahGeo now remembers the width of the media browser and inspector panes when switching between processing steps.

Summer: Time to Travel Reminisce

Summer is here. Summer holidays are just around the corner. This is the time of year when many of us usually plan to travel and explore the world. Not so this year.

Explore. Reminisce. Show

This year we can reminisce about past travels and adventures. This summer we can dig into our well-organized photo collections. Photos organized by location now allow us to virtually jump around the globe and through time. We can explore photos in Google Earth to feel teleported to places we had the luck to visit. With photos pinned to precise map locations, we can retrace our steps in Google Maps. Nothing refreshes the memory like photos combined with the aerial views that reveal how the individual pictures connect.

Photos on Google Maps
Photos on Google Maps: Visit to Taj Mahal

Continue reading Summer: Time to Travel Reminisce