How can you tell whether a photo is geotagged? You need to use an application that can read the metadata stored in the header of JPEG files. Let’s examine a photo that we know is geotagged.
New Orleans, LA
The “Gumbo Shop” is one of my favorite restaurants in New Orleans, Louisiana. A good friend used his iPhone 3GS to take a photo outside the restaurant (shown right). The iPhone features a built-in 3-MP GPS-enabled digital camera; photos taken with an iPhone are geotagged automatically. What if the photo weren’t captioned — how would you know where the Gumbo Shop is located? (For the sake of argument, let’s ignore the smaller sign that says, “Creole Cuisine,” a rather obvious clue.) The answer is, of course, inspect the photo metadata!
Click on the thumb-nailed version of the photo; a full-size, geotagged version of the photo will open in an external window. Right-click on the larger photo and save it to the desktop on your computer.
On an Apple Mac, open the photo with “Preview.” From the menubar, select “Tools / Show Inspector”; choose the “More Info Inspector” tab, then choose the “GPS” tab. Click on the button labeled “Locate” (see lower-left corner) to see the photo location displayed in Google Maps (your default Web browser will open automatically).
On a Windows PC, right-click on the file icon and select “Properties.” Choose the “Summary” tab; click the button labeled “Advanced” (in case you’re in “Simple” mode). Editor’s Note: This procedure should work; it may not. See Tech Tips, below.
Now test yourself: Is the thumb-nailed version of the photo geotagged?
Tech Tips: Download and install IrfanView, a great freeware graphic viewer for Windows. Next, download and install the Irfanview Graphic Viewer PlugIns. Open a photo file with IrfanView. From the menubar, select “Image / Information…”; click on the button labeled “EXIF info” (see lower-left corner). The “EXIF Info” window features a button labeled “Show in Google Earth” that works as expected, assuming the photo is geotagged and Google Earth is installed on your computer.
FWIW…Not sure your directions worked for me…I saved the large version of the picture to my desktop but when I right-clicked on the photo there was no summary tab. The only tabs I saw were General, Security, and Details.
Also not sure why your final question asks about the thumb nailed photo?
Welcome to Windows, Joanne! Refer to the section entitled, “Tech Tips” (added 23 October 2009) for a solution to the problem you experienced.