No way to create a new place???

That's fine if you're happy with pinning Google found address/places, but is absolutely useless when more precision is desired. For me, the best example of this is boating on the Great Lakes, and marking various places on the water. In previous versions, the process wasn't elegant, but workable. Now it stinks!

I have that same problem and I'm quite disappointed by iPhoto 11'. I haven't yet been able to add 'Places' to the pictures I took with my wife in Venice Italy last summer...

Message was edited by: arnop

Agreed. I totally regret upgrading. The manual geotagging is so much more difficult in this version. As much as I dislike Picasa, it's looking better and better everyday. I can't believe we gave up all the features in '09 and the only stuff we got in return was better social networking integration. Seriously lame Apple!!

I believe this may help. To change whether iPhoto looks up locations using GPS coordinates:
With iPhoto open, choose iPhoto > Preferences, and then click Advanced.

Choose an option from the “Look up Places” pop-up menu:

Automatically: iPhoto looks up all GPS coordinates to find location names, and marks those places with a marker pin on the Places map.

Never: iPhoto never looks up location names and doesn’t mark the locations of photos (even if you manually added locations to the photos).

NOTE: Each setting affects all photos in your photo library.

I did this and made it work:

Click info on a selected picture. Type the place over the small map. When the search is done, drag the red pin to the right position.

It is a bit slow to do if the location you want doesn´t pop up. Then type a place thats nearby instead, and drag the red pin manually to the desired place.

Come on Apple and fix the Places issue fast.
This new upgrade is the biggest heap of sh*t that Apple has brought out.
I loved my Apple and I photo.. I travel all around the world and have taken some 70,000 Photo's and PLACES doesn't work.
This is an urgent fix that's required. URGENT I said.
Everything else about Mac's is great. Shoot the developer 's I say.

I just spoke with Apple on this. They walked me through pretty much the same way that has been suggested on here and he seemed to suggest that this is a "step back" and that Apple is aware of it. While he could not guarantee anything he thought this would be "fixed" in the future to be as easy as it was in the previous version of iPhoto '09.

About a week ago I filed an Enhancement Request asking for re-implementation of the capacity to Drop A Pin to mark a place. Since the previous version did this, presumably they already have the code, so it should not take too long to get it back. I hope.

So creating a new place with custom description seems to work but it's extremely fiddly! What a deterioration!
I have two questions:

1. How do I delete a place?

2. How can I add photos to an existing place?

"Places" is just broken in iPhoto 2011. It used to be awkward but it did work. Apple needs to fix this ASAP. There's simply no way to assign a new place or to rename an old. I have wasted a lot of time trying to find a work around with no luck. Why did they change it from the old places? Also "help" doesn't help with this problem.

I just updated to v9.1.1 and I can now add and edit custom places. I suspect this was part of the previous v9.1 update but I don't think I had tried to get places to work since v9.0.1. In any case, once you create a places pin and name it using the photo's get info side panel you can do edits to the location in the relatively large Manage My Places window (Window > Manage My Places). This is also where you can delete a place (to answer a recent question).

Waymen,

Could you please describe exactly how you were able to create and edit a custom place? When you say "...once you create a places pin...", what exactly do you mean? I'm unable to figure out the method to create a new pin.

Thanks.

I think there are multiple ways to create a places pin. Some are discussed in this thread. In any case, here is one method (perhaps not the best, but it's a start).

Select a photo and press command-I (View > Info), this will add a panel to the right side of the iPhoto window. At the lower right in this info panel you should see a small map with a search field (called "Assign a Place..."). Select the search field and type the name of a well known location that was close to where you took the photo. For example, if you took a picture in New York City begin typing "New Yo..." and you should see a list which begins with "New York." Select the New York entry (or whatever is closest to the actual location) and the map will move to show that place with a pin marking the spot. Now within the small map where the pin is drawn zoom and/or move the pin to the approximate location you require. After moving the pin click on the places pin and you will get an edit box so that you can rename the location to whatever you want. After entering the new name click on the checkmark that is immediately to the right of the edit field to accept the name change. Now (if you wish) go to the Manage My Places Window (under the menu Window > Manage My Places) to fine tune the location (exact location and surface area that will allow you to match to other photos). That should do it.

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

I guess what was throwing me is that I was still looking for a way to point at a spot on a map and somehow issue a "drop pin" command. It appears that is still not an option. Having Google maps find a nearby location and then moving/renaming the pin seems an odd design choice on Apple's part.

Thanks again. At least there's a way to do it.