Geotagging a photo in Picasa Web

When taking a picture, it will be good to have its location remembered. The term used for this location storage is called Geotagging. More and more cameras now come with geotagging feature. Naturally, Android and iOS both include it as a standard.

Obviously, some privacy advocates will never want to turn the feature on. But, if you are on a tour, it will be good to geotag your photo especially when the location is not a famous spot.

The problem is that some times we do forget that geotag featured is turned off. When we return and process the photo, we are unable to show to our readers the location of the picture. My previous blog did talk about how to manually insert the geotag. This blog will tell you an even easier way.

Picasa Web is a place where you can store your pictures on line. The pictures were stored in albums. When you open an album, you will see a small map that show a number of markers. When you view individual photo, the map will actually show the location where the picture is taken.

Obviously, if you have not previously geotag your picture, you can't see the location information.  There will be a "add location" link next to the picture. However, it is only useful if you know the location name of the place. For those unknown location name places, it is practically useless.

Now, if you are viewing the album, there is a link called "view map". If you are viewing the picture itself there is also a link called "view album map". Clicking either of the link will show you a map with picture icons inside the map. Obviously, if you have not geotag your pictures, there will be few or none available.

I am not sure if you can access to the map when none of your pictures have geotag. Usually, I have at least one picture with geotag as I usually remember half way through that I have not turned on geotagging.

If you can access to the map, there is a button at the top left hand corner called "Edit map".  Clicking it will show the same map plus all the pictures in the album shown on the left. If you picture already have geotag information, it will show with a marker on the bottom right hand corner on the picture.

You can drag and drop any picture on the left into the map and it will help you to geotag the picture. To be more accurate in the location, I would suggest you go to the highest resolution in the map.

When you have finished your editing. Make sure you click "Done" on the top left hand corner of the page. It will bring you back to "view album map" page. You can then see the picture icons in the map where you have edited it.

One important note about the size of the pictures you upload. If you did not join Google+ your free upload is 800px on the biggest side. If you join Google+ it will be 2048px. Google allows 15GB of storage space (as at 2013). If you upload your pictures at the original size, it will count towards the size otherwise it will be free. So if you limit the size of your picture, you can have virtually unlimited uploads.

Unfortunately, Picasa Web may be on the way out. Google now automatically redirects you to Google+ whenever you try to view the picture. According to bloggers, this is a sign that Picasa Web is on the way out. I will really miss this nice feature plus the map view if Picasa Web is made obsolete.