Working with Digital Photographs in Zoner Photo Studio

On the Photo Trail, GPS Style

Not many GPS devices have built-in cameras yet, but these devices still make great companions for photo shoots in town and country. Not only will a GPS device lead you to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it will also lead you to the best vantage point for photographing the rainbow... and track the route you took to get there as well. Most GPS devices can also record a log of that route—a tracklog. In Zoner Photo Studio, you can use a tracklog to add shot location information to your photos.

If you are interested in these functions but you are using an edition that doesn’t support them, check out the trial version, which works like the PRO Edition for 30 days. When you take advantage of GPS information in your photo archive, it’s easy to later return to the sites with the best shots and seek other good shots in their surroundings.

Taken some great photos, but don’t know their coordinates? If you did not happen to have a GPS device on hand during a shoot or you’ve lost the tracklog, all is not lost! You can find shot locations on an online map from inside Zoner Photo Studio and assign those locations’ GPS coordinates to photos by clicking the locations.
To assign GPS coordinates to a group of photos, use Information -> GPS -> Assign GPS Data in the Browser menu.

In this window you can also search for coordinates and assign them to photos using on-line maps—specifically Google Maps unless you manually set up the use of another service.

When assigning locations using the log from a GPS tracker, don’t forget to set the time on your camera precisely. Set it based on the tracker itself if you can!

Using the GPS Features with Google Earth

Zoner Photo Studio cooperates very easily with Google Maps and Google Earth, which you can use to assign coordinates to photos and later display them atop on a traditional or satellite map.

Assigning coordinates to a photo in Zoner Photo Studio is quite simple. Go to Information | GPS | Assign GPS Data…. The first time you use this feature, you need to confirm registration of the Google map module into Zoner Photo Studio; do not be alarmed by this. To actually read in the coordinates, just click on the map location you want to use.
An interesting alternative source for coordinates is Google Earth. Use Information | GPS | Assign GPS Data from Google Earth… for this. After you select a batch of photos in the Browser and use this command, Google Earth is launched automatically, along with a special Zoner Photo Studio add-in that shows a window with a preview of the first photo in the batch and two arrow buttons for moving among photos. The most important button, Assign Coordinates to Picture, reads in the current coordinates from the map and assigns them to the selected photo.
Google Earth is also useful for presenting GPS-tagged photos. To do this, go to Zoner Photo Studio’s Manager module and use Information | GPS | Show in Google Earth… or Show in Google Earth (Advanced)…. The photos are shown at the spots on the map where they were taken, in the form of thumbnails with place names. Click the thumbnails to show larger versions of the pictures, including descriptions.
Communication with Google Earth makes use of standard KML/KMZ files, containing the EXIF keywords, descriptions, etc. added in Zoner Photo Studio or elsewhere.

Putting Photos’ GPS Data to Work

You can use GPS data to look through photos in your archive and find ones taken within a radius of your choice from any coordinates of your choice. You can also include GPS coordinates in your slideshows and in prints from the Manager’s Publish menu.
But perhaps the most impressive way to present them is in a Web photo gallery that contains links straight to a Google Maps display for each shot location. To create a gallery in Zoner Photo Studio, use Create Web Gallery... in the Publish menu. The wizard makes this job quick and easy. In the web gallery wizard, for certain templates, you can link to a map like this, using the variable text “{GPSLINK}.”
The GPSLINK to use for Google Maps is:
<a href="”http://maps.google.com/maps?q={CAM_LATITUDE#F:D}," {cam_longitude#f:d}&t="h&om=1&ll={CAM_LATITUDE#F:D},{CAM_LONGITUDE#F:D}&spn=0.02,0.02”" target="”GPSMAP”" onclick="”window.open(this.href,’’,’toolbar=no," location="no," directories="no," status="no," menubar="no," scrollbars="yes," resizable="yes," copyhistory="no," top="20," left="40," width="1000," height="700’);return" false;”="">Show on Map</a>.
Create your own web gallery to show off beautiful places... and just where to go to see them in person!
By combining photos with maps, you can create a gallery that brings your audience closer to the wonders of nature. In short, you can use GPS data to compose your own guide to the world’s most interesting spots and share them with just about anyone.