In view of the many pictures, after years hardly anyone can still remember where each individual photo was taken and what can be seen in the recordings.
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Identifying photo subjects: where are my pictures taken?
© Geosetter
In the case of smartphone photos, identification is comparatively easy if the location data has been saved in the image files – this is the default setting for most cell phones. You can also check afterwards in Windows Explorer whether this is the case with the images you have saved on your computer. To do this, right-click on the relevant file, select the “Properties” entry in the context menu, then switch to the “Details” tab and scroll down to the “GPS” area – you will only see the entry and the coordinates if the location function was activated when the photo was taken. Instead of laboriously taking over the longitude and latitude manually, start the Photos app integrated in Windows 10 and 11 and open a picture in it. Right-click on this in the app and continue with “File info” in the context menu. The Microsoft tool then displays a small map window in the lower left corner where you can see the location of the photo.
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Geosetter uses the coordinates and other Exif data in the image file to show exactly where the image was taken – including the direction and angle of view.
Geosetter offers you a much better overview and additional options. If you open an image file in this tool or select one on the left in the Explorer view, you will see the recording location on the right in the map view. If this is not yet the case for you, click on the “Map” button at the bottom. With the help of “Select map type” you have the option of choosing between a total of six views. Depending on the purpose and coordinates, the street view, the terrain view or another representation may be more suitable. In many cases, however, Geosetter not only shows you where the image was taken, but also the direction of view and the angle of the image. Both of these are particularly helpful in identifying landscape photos such as mountain peaks. The prerequisite for a correct display is that the compass in the smartphone was correctly calibrated. The angle of view then results from the selected zoom level and the focal length of the lens.
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One of the strengths of the search engine Yandex is the recognition and identification of image motifs. This sometimes works much better than with Google.
Internet search engines offer the fastest way to search for the subject and thus also for the location of the photo in the file information without geocoordinates. To do this, click on the black camera symbol in Google Images, then switch to “Upload image -› Search ”, upload your photo and wait for the analysis. Sometimes the result is clear and unambiguous, but sometimes Google is wrong. The Yandex search engine often works much better when it comes to determining the subject, the procedure using the camera symbol and file upload is similar. The community page “Where is this” is still under construction, which relies on the knowledge or recognition of its members.
Tip:
You can read more information on the subject as well as how to quickly find photos in the image collection on the Windows computer with the help of Digikam, among other things, in our online guide.
