Screenshot is of ExifTool GUI - an ExifTool companion program

[Update after original posting: I recently found a new tool that uses EXIFTOOL in the background but trumps this one! Check it out here.] Not sure what GeoTagging is? Not sure why I chose to run you through the steps of ExifTool? Check out my other, more general post/review, right here.

With that said, let’s jump into ExifTool. Now, to start off, this is meant to be primarily a command prompt tool, which means right out of the box it doesn’t have a pretty interface. Please don’t let that scare you, though! If you use the steps in this post you will be able to use this free tool to geotag your photos!

There arethree basic ways you can use ExifTool to tag your photos.

1. The GUI Way (I just found this and it does provide some pretty buttons! - definately try this way first). It is by far the easiest and fastest. If you only need the lat/long/altitude information, this is gold.
2. The kinda easy way: Just in case the GUI way doesn’t work.
3. The harder way, which lets you attach lots more GPS info to your photo. This uses the program directly from command prompt. If you need your photos tagged with more GPS information, you should probably read about the harder way.

[*Geek Note - GUI stands for Graphical User Interface - the pretty parts of programs that let you click buttons, view nice text boxes, etc.]

The GUI Way (what you are probably used to) TRY THIS WAY FIRST

1. Download the ExifTool .zip from this site and unzip the .exe file to your desktop or other location on your computer. Rename it to exiftool.exe. It was previously named ExifTool(-k).exe.
2. Download the ExifTool GUI from this site and unzip the .exe file to the same location that you just placed the ExifTool.exe at.
3. As long as they are in the same directory, you can double-click on the ExifToolGUI icon to run the program. It is fairly easy to use.
   1. Locate the folder that contains the images you want to apply the GPS data to.
   2. Select the image(s) you want to affect.
   3. Make sure the EXIF button on the right side is selected.
   4. Click one of the ^ buttons next to the word Edit. Click the GPS tab and fill in your data. It has a check box for North and East. If it is South or West, simply leave the appropriate box unchecked (for example, if your coordinate is North, leave the South box unchecked). Click the Save button.

A Few Things to Note:

• You can make a few basic configurations in the Options menu at the top.
• Just a reminder that the site states that this is not a commercial product and that you should use at your own risk… other disclaimers that remove liability from anyone else if your photos blow up. It worked for me - try it on some copies of your photos initially. Once they work, you can probably feel fairly comfortable using it.
• The GPS fields are pretty limited using this option.

The kinda easy way

I like this way because it also lets me quickly select specific images and tag them. In many cases I might just want, say the first 10 images, when I knew they were at a particular location. I can then drag and drop just those without have to put them in their own folder or running the script on them one at a time (which is what is required in the harder way).

1. Download the ExifTool .zip from this site and unzip the .exe file to your desktop or other location on your computer.
2. Rename the executable as described below.
   • You’ll rename the executable to contain the GPS information you want to apply to a particular set of photos. Then, when you want to tag a different set of photos, you can rename it again.
   • It should be named in this general manner: exiftool (-GPSLongitudeRef=[W/E] -GPSLongitude=[longitude coordinate]…).exe  [my note - you may not have to actually type the .exe part. If you didn't see it there when you started renaming, you can probably leave it out]. You should fill in the W/E and longitude coordinates with the specific information that you manually read from the GPS waypoints you recorded during your photo shoot.
   • A specific example is as follows: The only spaces are those between exiftool and the first ( and the space just prior to the new set of information, like between the W and -GPSLongitude. It labels my photos with the coordinates, altitude and timestamp that the coordinates were recorded at.
     • exiftool (-GPSLongitudeRef=W -GPSLongitude=104,54.3101 -GPSLatitudeRef=N -GPSLatitude=39,33.5368 -GPSAltitude=1796m).exe
   • For full documentation on the available GPS tags, you can check out this page.
3. Drag/drop the file(s) or directory that contains the files you want to tag with a particular set of information. (See, I told you it would be pretty easy).

A Few Things to Note:

• This will erase any pre-existing GPS related information on the photo (all other metadata is left the same).
• You have to avoid using several characters in this as they are not allowed in Windows file names. They are
  /\?*:|”<>. That is why we had to avoid a timestamp in this method (which would have involved both a : and a /).
• This process copies the originals of your photos and puts an _original at the end, giving you a set of duplicate file names. You can avoid this by adding -overwrite_original just prior to the last parentheses. Note that this is at your own risk as it can sometimes cause file corruption.

Now, the Harder Way

If you’ve lasted this long, you’re ready for the hard stuff. It is in command line, which isn’t too bad, if you’ve seen it before. If you haven’t, well, proceed at your own risk.

1. Download the ExifTool .zip from this site and unzip the .exe file to your desktop or other location on your computer. Rename it to exiftool.exe. It was previously named ExifTool(-k).exe.
2. To pull up command prompt, click the Start button at the bottom left of your screen and choose run. Type command and you will see a black box pop up.
3. You’ll need to run the program through this and pass it some parameters. You’ll need to modify it a bit for your own situation. You’ll need to use different lat/long/alt coordinates. You’ll also need to point to a different folder where your pictures are stored. You should point to a different directory for the exiftool.exe (you should point that first part to wherever you saved it at). As this isn’t a full tutorial on command line use, I pasted all the information I typed into it in step 4. Don’t forget, replace the applicable information with yours.
4. C:\Users\Brian\Desktop\exiftool -GPSLongitude=104,54.3101 -GPSLon
   gitudeRef=W -GPSLatitude=39,33.5368 -GPSLatitudeRef=N -GPSAltitude=”1963.00 m” -
   GPSDateStamp=2008:01:10 -GPSTimeStamp=”3:50:01 PM” “B:\My Pictures\Reyman\2008\2
   008_01_GPSTest”

A Few Things to Note:

• If you are into doing this via the command line, you should definately check out all the documentation on the tool, at the original site for downloading/documentation, here.