HoudahGeo

A way overpriced one-trick pony. Upgrades are tricky: software purchased prior to December 2015 doesn't;t qualify for upgrades. One can choose between an upgrade license or a discount (if available), but can't combine both. Will only buy as a part of a bundle. A properly affordable bundle.

This has been an essential tool for me. I do a lot of photography in the wilderness on long trips, so usually turn off my camera's GPS. HoudahGeo lets me batch process the photos later after they are loaded in the Photos app. Its maps are the only ones that work well off-the-grid. Has many other features too, such a time corrections. As an example, try to geo-correct a photo from the Nepal Himalaya in Photos- can't do it as the mapping resolution is too poor. A bit pricy but I could find no other tool to do this.

Everyone knows that the Photos app on your computer does this for free, right?

This app turned out to work relatively well for me, I used it both for loading tracks and tagging photos from my camera using reference iphone photos. It did the job, but awkwardly. I can't knock the developer for this because I dont know how i'd do it differently. Overall, the software does what it says it does. Unfortunately, I can't give it a full 5 because of the silly upgrade policy. I purchased a license less than a year ago and when I got a new mac and installed HoudahGeo my license didn't work. After inquiring to the developers, I was told that's because if I want to update to the new version I have to pay another $19 on top of the $39 I paid for this app. Apparently, I was outside of their grace period. I was however told how to get the previous version.

The developer's site has an installer that isn't adware

HoudahGeo brings travel photos taken with non-GPS cameras together with GPS location data in order to swiftly and easily make these photos easier to track, organize, and share. With a large single-window interface, HoudahGeo hides none of its features. It occupies a very specific space in the world of photo software, so even with its entire feature set on display, the user experience remains streamlined and unambiguous. Users that are active in the Flickr community or like sharing their photos on Google Earth will find in HoudahGeo the fastest way to geotag photos and upload them onto one of those platforms thanks to native support within the app. Some apps dazzle with their novelty. But there’s something equally impressive about an app that simply states and then solves a problem with no fuss. HoudahGeo impresses as one of the latter. The wide array of location matching options makes it virtually impossible to close the app without achieving your goal of tagging your photos. No option is off the table, from the obvious – ability to choose locations on a map; to the professional – extensive support for GPS location data and devices; to the creative – ability to use an iPhone’s geotagged photo as a GPS reference point. The simple workflow guides you from loading photos, to processing them, to the final output stage with minimal friction, as accessible to complete novices as it is malleable to the savvy user. Go somewhere and take lots of photos!

With the introduction of iCloud Photos and Google Photos, it's a great idea to update the EXIF information and Geotagging of your photos, to take full advantage of these services. HoudahGeo makes that really easy.

Considering transferring from Aperture to Photos or other tooling? That's the reason I bought it, I want to store all carefully added GPS data /location info and IPTC data into my photo's (in the JPG's). And hell yeah what a great tool, easy add missing GPS data Longitude and Latitude, but also grab city, country province and other data and write this including IPTC data (like Keywords, comments) back to the original files Encountering problems? I experienced that the developer solves it almost Immediately, currently running a Beta version wich included a fix for me! Worth every EURO I spend on it.... (and EUR is becoming more expensive than the dollar currently)

This is also a *free* update/upgrade from Version 3.0 - nice one!

I have tried several other applications to Geotag my photos. I have found HoudahGeo to be the most straightforward and easiest to use. The UI is easily understood. I have using HoudahGeo for over a year. Theirs been a few bugs, but the developer has quickly resolved them. In a couple of cases he had a fix the next day. I have worked with a lot of vendors of software. The price of an application does not always reflect the level of support. This developer is an exception to many I have encountered. Two of the features that are the most useful for me are Inspect/Geocode and Geocode using Google Earth. 1) If a photo is already Geotaged, the applications Inspect/Geocode feature is great for adjusting coordinates. I have a Sony Cybershot DSC-HX200V camera with a built in GPS function. I have found it to be off as much as a 1/4 mile. I was in the stands at a NASCAR race, but according to the camera, I was in the parking lot. Using the HoudahGeo Geocode map, I easily moved the map pin to the correct location. 2) HoudahGeo has a nice API to Google Earth. I had thousands of photos without GPS info. After selecting one or more photos, you click on 'Geocode using Google Earth'. Google Earth is launched and a HoudahGeo window floats at the bottom. After determining the location using Google Earth, the corresponding GPS info is updated in the HoudahGeo floating widow. You then click on that window and the GPS info is copied to the HoudahGeo selected photo(s). I am very pleased with the application, developer and the price.

I have been using "MyTracks" for several months and never really got into it. The usability is okay, but if you use the software only every now and then the UI, especially with the "Fotoablage" is - let's call it a bit complicated. HoudahGeo is different. The UI is much more easy to understand and locating pictures by simply pointing to the place they were taken is really easy and straight forward. The whole workflow is easy - import the pictures - geolocate them (several possible ways) - write the EXIF to the files or use other ways of exporting the data. Also the support is quick and helpful. I'll contact them again with a few ideas. Overall a very nice piece of software.

The app is really easy to use. If you get confused on how to get it to work, check the Screencast on the developer's website and you'll see it's really easy. So far I haven't encountered any problem and I can say it's the best on its job.

Not only is the program excellent, but the support is top grade. I had a problem with the v3 upgrade not loading (it turned out that there was a password-locked file in the Pictures folder that HoudahGeo consults when starting up) and the developer worked with me over several days and numerous e-mails to track down the solution. Excellent all around.

Seems like they rushed into releasing this version without really running it through it's paces. Makes you wonder if it really worth the price of an upgrade.

It works well and does what is advertised, It is not totally automatic and requires a little understanding og the program for the way I use it but easily learned.

I am using this regularly to georeference lots of photos. I use a Garmin GPS and save the tracks, and then georeference from the tracks. There are lots of features of this app that I have not used, but the ones I do use just work. However, I have found, after georeferencing thousands of photos, a few gripes. 1. If you georeference from GPS tracks, you have to remember to set your camera's clock before you start taking photos. If you end up changing the clock after you start, you need to set up two documents--one for before and one for after changing the clock. (You better write down when you changed it!) Likewise, if you have 2 cameras, you need to set up separate documents for each camera unless they are exactly synchronized--which is clunky (the delta between camera and GPS time is constant for each document). A better interface would be to have the delta default to the same, but be able to change it for groups of photos. Then you could keep all the images from the same trip, but different cameras, in the same document. If you are GPSing from Google Earth, the interface is confusing. If you click on an image that has been georeferenced, then Google Earth is activated, and your next keystroke goes to Google Earth. But it hasn't been georeferenced, then Houdahgeo keeps control. This is very strange behavior--you run through a bunch of photos trying to remember where you took them, and use the down-arrow to scroll through them. When you reach an image that has been georeferenced, suddenly the scrolling stops, because Google Earth is now getting the keystrokes. This is a file-based program (which is probably right), so it saves a reference to photos and various data for each photo (like Lat/Lon) in the file. You then write out the data when you are done (so that, e.g., the Lat/Lon will be included when the photo is uploaded to Flickr). However, there is no indication within the program whether the Lat/Lon in the image is the same as in the Houdahgeo file. So it is very easy to update the Lat/Lon in Houdahgeo and forget to export the change, so your images have the wrong data. Overall, a stable and very useful program. The developers have done lots of work to make sure it interfaces as well as possible with various photo programs like Lightroom and iPhoto (which I don't use). But it could use a complete review of its user interface to make easier to understand. Also, I recommend that you become familiar with exiftool, as it is the easiest way to change the date/time in a photo if you set your camera's clock incorrectly, which you should do before you run Houdahgeo.

Great tool for geoencoding !

HoudahGeo just works. I used it every day for 3 weeks as I processed vacation photos. Import the photos, import the GPS data from the logger and HoudahGeo takes it from there. If you're just getting started here's a huge tip, set your camera clock before you leave and don't change it while traveling.

Why does the operating system ask me if I want to allow incoming connections for HoudahGeo?

Much more accurate and easier to use than iPhoto's geotagging. Thank you Houdah!