GeoTagging With a Standalone GPS Unit & GeoSetter

• Power on the camera and GPS units
• Synchronize the camera time to the GPS (because the GPS gets its time from the satellites)
• Set the GPS into tracking mode and start the track
• Take a photo of the GPS clock display (with hour, minute & seconds)
• Now you can shoot the rest of your photos
• After you are done taking photos, stop GPS tracking
• Transfer the photos from the camera photo card to a folder on computer
• Copy OR save the tracklog to the computer in GPX file format (same folder as photos). Note that this step states “copy OR save.” Some GPS units erase the time data of the track when saving a tracklog, so in that case you copy the “current track” instead of saving it. Older Garmin GPS devices erased time data when saving a tracklog, so be sure how your GPS operates.
• Launch GeoSetter. Navigate to the folder with the track file & photos and start geotagging!

GeoSetter is a fantastic program to input GPS EXIF data onto your pictures. Below are steps to ensure the best experience when using GeoSetter for the first time.

1 - Start GeoSetter
2 - On the top left, select the “File” tab and then “Settings” (Figure 12)
3 - Select the "File Options" tab and enable the following options:

• Don’t Create Internal XMP Data if it Doesn’t Exist Already
• If IPTC Data Exists Already, Use It As Is (Unicode or Local Character Coding)
• Overwrite Original File when Saving Changes
• Preserve File Data and Time when Saving Changes

4 - Select “Select All” (bottom left of Figure 14)
5 – Select the “Data Preferences” tab and enable the following options:

• Consider Daylight Saving Time in Time Zone
• Save Time Zone to Exif Data
• Set Taken Date to all Exif Dates
• Add Time Zone Automatically to Taken Date when Assigning Map Position
• Flickr Geo Tags
• Set IPTC Creation Date from Taken Date (can be changed individually for each image)
• Use Current Language for Countries (instead of English)

6 - The rest of the options are user preference (Figures 16A, 16B and 17).

1. Save your photos to your hard drive - it will be quicker and easier to work with them on your computer.
2. Save the GPX files from the GPS to your computer; recommend placing them in the same folder as photos.
3. Run GeoSetter.
4. Select the “View” tab and then “Tracks” (Figure 18)
5. Select the “Images” tab and “Open Folder”; select the folder location of your photos. (Figure 19)
6. You should see the first photo high-lighted like in Figure 20.
7. Identify the location of the GPX tracklog by double-clicking on the folder icon in the “Tracks” window (Figure 21) and navigating to the file (Figure 22). Press “Open.”
8. The screen should now look similar to Figure 23.
9. Go to the “Folder View” window and select the last photo to be geotagged. (Figure 24)
10. Navigate to the first of the photos in the list to be geotagged. Press and hold the “Shift” key then select the photo of the GPS display; this will select all in the series to be geotagged. (Figure 25)
11. Go to the “Image Preview” window and adjust the size of the GPS display (Figure 26) until it fills the “Image Preview” window from top to bottom (Figure 27).
12. Place the mouse cursor on the image and drag the GPS screen to the far left of the “Image Preview” window.
13. The Geosetter display should look similar to Figure 28. Now we are ready to synchronize the photos with the tracklog data. Press the “Synchronize” button on the toolbar (shown in Figure 28).
14. The synchronize window will pop-up (Figure 29). Here we can adjust any time differences & select the appropriate options to use.
15. Since the GPS photo was selected last, it will be shown in the “image preview” window. This allows us to compare the time stamp of the photo Exif meta data to the GPS time displayed in the photo. Correct any time difference at the bottom of the “syncronize” pop-up window (refer to yellow arrows in Figure 30).
16. Once you are ready, press “OK” and you should see a pop-up window like Figure 31.
17. If you weren’t successful, press “No” and adjust the synchronize parameters accordingly.
18. If you answered “Yes”, then wait for the program to complete the operation; this can take awhile depending on a number of things: speed of your computer, number of photos, size/quality of the photos, or file types.  If you were successful you’ll see something like Figure 32. Note that the lat/long info is red in color, indicating it has not been applied/saved to the photo meta data yet.
19. You may find that all of the meta data can not be seen because the size of the thumbnails are too small. You have two options:

• double-click on the GPS photo display and a “Edit Data” window will popup (Figure 33), OR
• use the “slider” (Figure 34) on the toolbar to change the size of the thumbnails. I prefer to use the “slider” option because I can still see the other photos Exif meta data.

1. Since the GPS photo and the photo’s Exif meta data are both visible (Figure 35), we can compare the GPS photo time and lat/long with what Geosetter has proposed for geotagging.
2. Decision time - we can either save/apply the changes or exit without saving. To save the results and write the geotag info into the Exif meta data press the “save” icon on the toolbar (Figure 36).
3. The color of the Exif meta data shown on the photos will change from red to black showing that the geotag info is now integrated into the photo Exif meta data. During the save process you will see the status shown at the bottom of the “Folder View” window (Figure 37).
4. If you decided to exit before saving the changes a “Confirm” popup window will be displayed (Figure 38). This is helpful if you forget to save the changes before exiting Geosetter.
5. Your photos are now geotagged!