How to create a new place in iPhoto 11 without doing any harm?

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Richard Liu Author

Level 1

88 points

How to create a new place in iPhoto 11 without doing any harm?

Yes, I know how to create a new place for a photo -- theoretically:

Select the photo.
Make sure the Info icon in the lower right portion of the iPhoto window is clicked and the too-tiny-for-any-but-the-youngest-eyes map is displaying.
Click in "Assign a Place..." and begin typing a place that iPhoto will search for. It searches in both "your places" (i.e., those that you have already defined) as well as in Google Maps.
When you see a place in the search results list that you think might be close to the one you mean, select it.
A pin appears on the itsy-bitsy map. Move it to the exact place you mean. You can make controls appear on the map by moving the mouse over the bottom of the map. The controls allow you to zoom in and out, and to change views (Terrain, Satellite, Hybrid). When the pin is where you want it, click it. The current name of the location appears. Modify it to the name you want, then click the check mark.

That's "all" there is to it ... except for a couple of "gotchas."

There's a difference between what happens when you select a place that you've defined and when you select a place that Google found in the search results. If it's a place that you've defined, and you then move the pin to a new location and/or change its name, this will affect all photos assigned to the custom place. In effect, you are modifying the place.
All places have a radius associated with them, thereby making them circles. You can adjust the radius only in the Maintain My Places window. In the itsy-bitsy map it doesn't even appear. However, if the newly defined place overlaps existing ones, all the photos assigned to the overlapped places will be assigned to the new one. Their pins will remain where they were.

Now, before anybody suggests sending feedback to Apple, let me emphasize that I have been sending Apple feedback on the wrong-headed implementation of Places since iPhoto 9.0. New versions have come and gone (the current one is 9.1.2), but these "features" have remained. So my purpose in opening this thread is to consolidate work arounds to these "features" in one place. My work around:

Whenever I define a new place, I select only a single photo. I try to name my places so that I can distinguish them from those that Google finds. In order to avoid Gotcha 1 I select a place that Google finds and try to place the pin close enough to where I want it, but far enough from any other places that I've defined. I give it a name that I can easily find it Manage My Place.
I immediately open Manage My Places and select the new place. I first note the pins near it, then decrease its radius, move the pin to the desired location, note the nearby places, and give it its final name.
I then view Places and navigate to the new place to view the photos assigned to it. If I'm lucky, there's only one. Otherwise, I have to reassign the other photos to their correct places.

Richard

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.7), 2.66 GHz Core i7, 17", 8GB RAM

Posted on Apr 30, 2011 4:13 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 10, 2011 8:20 PM in response to Richard Liu

Finally, someone who can explain the details that need to be followed! Thank you.

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Answer 2

Dec 10, 2011 8:31 PM in response to fcrossman

So... in the hope it will not confuse folks more, let me be more specific of a procedure that works for me...

Procedure to create a new My Places location.

OK there is more you can do with a non-GPS Coord linked photo.

Click Info and then click Assign a Place in the lower right of screen. (if your photo has a location linked to it already the Assign a Place will NOT show up.)

Choose a location name near the actual location that Google Maps can find.

Click that location in the Google Maps list that appears and your photo will be temporarily assigned to that location.

Now type over that location name in order to make sure to give that location a unique name that will show up in your My Places list and click that name after you have typed it to be sure it is accepted.

Now in iPhoto click Window/Manage My Places and go the that newly named location in the large My Places map. There's no easy search. You have to run down through the alphabetical list.

Drag the flag to the location you want this place to be and click Done.

The location name is now in your My Places list at the location you dragged the flag to!

It is important to note that only your unique named locations show up in your Places list, so if you want to modify the location coordinates you have to establish a unique name for it.

This is much more complicated that previous iPhoto versions!

But Yeah!!!!!!!!!!

It really works!!!!!!!

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Answer 3

Richard Liu Author

Level 1

88 points

Dec 13, 2011 1:20 PM in response to fcrossman

Depending on how close your places are to one another, you may not encounter the problem that Apple really needs to address. When you select a place that Google suggests, you not only get a pin that you can position and rename, but you also get a radius around the pin that you do not see until you go into Manage My Places, and the size of which you can only change there. If you are extremely unlucky, the new place (incl. its radius) overlaps an existing place, and all the photos that were assigned to that place will now be assigned to the new place EVEN BEFORE YOU CAN ADJUST THE RADII OF THE TWO PLACES INVOLVED. Adjusting the radii so that the places no longer overlap does not cause the photos that were wrongly assigned to the new place to be assigned to the correct place again. So you have to reassign them manually after "disentangling" the overlapping places.

The only way to avoid the problem altogether -- but that constitutes bending over backwards to accommodate Apple! -- is to initially select a place that is guaranteed to be very far away from any of your other places, then to make its radius miniscule in Manage My Places and then positions it where it belongs.

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Answer 4

Apr 9, 2012 7:25 PM in response to Richard Liu

While this tip is great, there are times there is absolutely nothing around the place you need in google, for example when you went out camping in the middle of nowhere or something.

So here are my 2 cents for this scenario:

1. Go to Google Maps and look for your place (maybe yo know how to follow the highway or dirt roads to get there).

2. Right click right in your place and select "What's here?", you will get a green arrow , but more importantly, you will get the coordinates in the search box.

3. Copy the coordinates and paste them in the "Assign a Place" box in iPhoto, you will see the pin drop in your place.

4. Once you get the pin you can move it around to just the right spot.

5. Now, type in the name of the place, like "Middle of nowhere peak, Colorado" or something, when you get the dropdown of results, you will see the first option reflect the same name you typed and the legend "(Rename current Location)", click on that option

And voila! The rename option leaves the pin in the place you wanted but shows the proper name you wanted for the place.

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Answer 5

Apr 9, 2012 7:25 PM in response to Richard Liu

While this tip is great, there are times there is absolutely nothing around the place you need in google, for example when you went out camping in the middle of nowhere or something.

So here are my 2 cents for this scenario:

1. Go to Google Maps and look for your place (maybe yo know how to follow the highway or dirt roads to get there).

2. Right click right in your place and select "What's here?", you will get a green arrow , but more importantly, you will get the coordinates in the search box.

3. Copy the coordinates and paste them in the "Assign a Place" box in iPhoto, you will see the pin drop in your place.

4. Once you get the pin you can move it around to just the right spot.

5. Now, type in the name of the place, like "Middle of nowhere peak, Colorado" or something, when you get the dropdown of results, you will see the first option reflect the same name you typed and the legend "(Rename current Location)", click on that option

And voila! The rename option leaves the pin in the place you wanted but shows the proper name you wanted for the place.

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Answer 6

Apr 9, 2012 7:26 PM in response to Richard Liu

While this tip is great, there are times there is absolutely nothing around the place you need in google, for example when you went out camping in the middle of nowhere or something.

So here are my 2 cents for this scenario:

1. Go to Google Maps and look for your place (maybe yo know how to follow the highway or dirt roads to get there).

2. Right click right in your place and select "What's here?", you will get a green arrow , but more importantly, you will get the coordinates in the search box.

3. Copy the coordinates and paste them in the "Assign a Place" box in iPhoto, you will see the pin drop in your place.

4. Once you get the pin you can move it around to just the right spot.

5. Now, type in the name of the place, like "Middle of nowhere peak, Colorado" or something, when you get the dropdown of results, you will see the first option reflect the same name you typed and the legend "(Rename current Location)", click on that option

And voila! The rename option leaves the pin in the place you wanted but shows the proper name you wanted for the place.

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Answer 7

Richard Liu Author

Level 1

88 points

Apr 10, 2012 2:03 PM in response to dcaballero

The problem about which I originally posted is not creating a place, but creating it in such a way that you can be sure that its radius does not overlap another place. When Google creates a place for you, it drops a pin on the teeny weeny map. What Google doesn't display on that map is the radius of the place whose center is the pin, and any other place that you have defined on the map. If the new place overlaps an existing one, all the photos that were assigned to the overlappsd place will be reassigned to the new place. Relocating or resizing either of the places is only possible in the Manage my places dialog, where undoing the overlap will not undo the reassignment. You'll have to aasign them manually to the correct place.

Yes, there are some strategies for minimizing the likelihood that a new place will overlap an existing one. Basically, you have to create the new place "out of harm's reach," which means somewhere that's guaranteed to be far enough away from any places that it might overlap. On the other hand, you want it to be close enough to where you want it that you don't spend hours dragging it there. And, before you begin to move it to the right place, decrease the radius so that, if there are one of more existing places close to the intended place, you won't drag the pin into an overlap situation.

Richard

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Answer 8

Apr 10, 2012 7:37 PM in response to Richard Liu

Well, I responded to how I got iPhoto to geotag my photos in a previous post, but I must say it is excruciatingly painful to do this. iPhoto 11 is a failed product when it comes to easily geotagging non- geotagged photos taken in places that have not been entered into iPhoto 11's geotag db.

I no longer follow my prescription given earlier. Instead I open my non-geotagged photo in Graphic Converter and click on Add or Edit GPS values. I use MacGPSPro to read my GPSr with the coordinates of the location of the untagged photo and put it in the format of xxx.xxx degrees. Then I paste the coordinates into the Add or Edit GPS values window in Graphic Converter. Then I save the geotagged photo to the desktop and import it into iPhoto11. This works to create a new place in iPhoto11 which I can assign to other photos taken at this location by "copying" the photo, selecting other photos, and selecting "paste location" from the Edit menu.

I have to say this is very fast compared to working with the "Assign a Place" window in iPhoto11.

Apple: Please give us the ability to paste actual GPS coords into our photo info db!

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Answer 9

Richard Liu Author

Level 1

88 points

Apr 12, 2012 8:27 AM in response to fcrossman

@fcrossman,

Thanks for the description of your workflow. What does iPhoto do when you import the photo to which you've manually assigned GPS coordinates? What name does it give the location? How larage is the radius of the new place?

Thanks,

Richard

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Answer 10

Apr 12, 2012 12:38 PM in response to Richard Liu

Richard:

When I attach GPS coordinates to photos using Graphic Converter and I then import the now geotagged photos into iPhoto, iPhoto maps them to the exact coordinate location and assigns a place name from its own map data base. It is not possible to give that location a different name because the Assign a Place option will not be displayed. For example a photo I took in Portola Redwoods State Park ten miles from La Honda CA is still assigned the place name La Honda which covers an area of about 50 square miles.

There is no radius of this place to be displayed because it is not a "Manage My Places" label.

I can still use the large Places map to hone in on the pin representing only the SP photos and use the arrow on the pin to display only those photos taken in Portola Redwoods SP, but I can't make that a special place name.

There may be times when you will want to create and manage your own place name by the procedures described above in this thread. But that leads to the need to manage the radius of action for each of the My Places labels.

I wasn't aware of the ability to manually input the geocoordinates into the Assign a Place window as described by dcaballero, but it is a way to assign a special My Places name to a specific geocoordinate location as long as you know how to deal with the radius issues.

I have two cameras now. One has a GPS built in and all my photos are geotagged. I prefer to use it as it automates the assignment of location in iPhoto.

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Answer 11

Richard Liu Author

Level 1

88 points

Apr 12, 2012 1:34 PM in response to fcrossman

OK, thanks. What happens if you first create a new place for a photo a give it a different name than the one that Google suggests, then external to iPhoto, assign GPS coordinates to another photo that places it somewhere inside the circle of the new place, and finally import the photo with the newly assigned GPS coordinates into iPhoto? Where does iPhoto say it was taken, at the place that you created or at one that Google has assigned? If at the place that you created, what happens if, in iPhoto, you create another place (for another photo, of course, since you can only create places when assigning them to photos) that overlaps the first? Of course, iPhoto will now say that the first photo was taken at the new place, but what about the photo to which you assigned GPS coordinates before importing it?

Thanks,

Richard

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Answer 12

léonie

Level 10

194,519 points

Apr 12, 2012 2:20 PM in response to fcrossman

When I attach GPS coordinates to photos using Graphic Converter and I then import the now geotagged photos into iPhoto, iPhoto maps them to the exact coordinate location and assigns a place name from its own map data base. It is not possible to give that location a different name because the Assign a Place option will not be displayed.

I see a different behaviour when I import images with exact GPS coordinates (assigned using JetPhoto or GeoTagalog). iPhoto will assign its own Place Name, but I can change that easily by clicking onto the pin in the tiny map and simply editing the pre-assigned name in the texfield attached to the pin. Afterwards this place exitst with the radius "zero". (iPhoto '11, version 9.2.3)

Regards

Léonie

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Answer 13

Apr 12, 2012 4:06 PM in response to léonie

Yes! This is the solution to creating a personalized location name for geotagged photo locations imported into iPhoto. I had not clicked that small window pin to see that you could change the name. Of course Apple iPhoto help was no help on this either.

I find that the radius if not "zero" is very small, and you can make it even smaller or larger in Manage My Places.

Thank you leonieDF!

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