Sometimes, you may take a picture with your smartphone or DSLR camera but do not remember the location or place where the picture was taken. Or maybe while browsing the internet, you found a picture of a unique street or place and want to know exactly where it is on the map. Fortunately, there are many ways to help you achieve this.
The EXIF feature available in most smartphones and DSLR cameras stores important data about the photos you take, such as the date and time of capture, ISO settings, shutter speed, white balance, camera type, and geographical location where the photo was taken. All this data is embedded in the image file, but how is it used to actually locate the image on the map? Well, here are 5 simple and very easy ways to use EXIF data to determine the photo’s location.
First Method: Accessing Photo Information
Let’s start with the simple methods first. If, for example, you are looking for a desktop wallpaper or home screen wallpaper on one of the wallpaper download sites on the internet, and while browsing through the wallpapers, you want to know the location of a specific picture, you can simply open the image and find a section containing a description of the image and information about it. Most websites do this like Unsplash and Pexels, so all you have to do is open the image and look for the section with the information where you will find the location where the picture was taken, or sometimes the name of the image or wallpaper is the same as the location.
Second Method: Using Google Images Search
This method may succeed or fail and cannot be relied upon, but it is still worth trying. Most of you are familiar with Google Images search service, it is a professional service with multiple uses including knowing the location where an image was taken. All you have to do is upload the image from your device to the service, then wait a bit until the location where the image was taken is estimated, or at least the prominent thing in the image.
Since many of us use Google on a daily basis, this is the fastest way to easily know the location of the image. But it is also the least accurate, which is why we will discuss some other solutions below.
Third Method: Using Metapicz Website
The Metapicz website is a very unique site that displays all the information you need to know about any image based on the EXIF data stored. You may be surprised by the professionalism of this website when you use it, as it extracts many details about the image not only the camera type and location of the capture – but also the software used to edit the image, whether the LED flash was used in the image or not, ISO level, lens aperture, focal length… and much more. You can try it and you won’t regret it, but if no information is displayed about the image, it is because the image does not contain any stored EXIF data.
Fourth Method: Using Pic2Map Website
The Pic2Map website is another site that allows you to know the location where the image was taken by extracting EXIF information from the image, it operates in the same way as the previous site. All you have to do is drag and drop the image or select it from the folder on your computer, once you do that, the site will show you the location where the image was captured with an interactive map to precisely determine the location.
The website also gathers additional data about the image such as camera model, ISO level, focal length, shutter speed… and more. By scrolling down a bit, you will find more useful information. The site also offers a great feature of seeing images taken near the location of the image you uploaded. In addition to providing a quick overview of information like: What is ISO technology, how to determine the location of the image, etc.
Fifth Method: Using Where is the Picture Website
The Where is the Picture website is a very simple site – in fact, it is an interactive map used to pinpoint the exact location where any image was taken on the map. All you have to do is upload the image and you will see information about the location directly on this small point marked on the map. If you want more details, just click on the blue button indicating “Read image info” near the top of the map. This will open a popup window containing all the information and details obtained from EXIF data.
