Remember that familiar sinking feeling when you look at an obscure snap you took and think ‘where in the world have I taken this one?’

Geotagging is a term used for adding location coordinates to photos, giving you an easy way to link the pictures to a map and show where in the world you pressed the shutter. This latitude longitude information is easily stored as tags embedded directly in the headers of your snaps. To delve deeper into the technical aspect, this information actually goes into the exchangeable image file format, more commonly known as the EXIF of your pictures. Overlay these GPS points on any mapping software and you can easily create your own map of pictures. In the beginning geotagging was a complex process only meant for professional photographers. But the idea has been gaining ground recently with new easy-to-use online options aiding the process.

The easiest way to geotag pictures is by using specially crafted cameras that let you embed GPS coordinates directly into your pictures. Cameras like Nikon GP-1, Ricoh G3 and Canon EOS 40D come with inbuilt geotagging functionality that bungs in the latitude and longitude information when you download the pictures. These however as you might have already guessed are the high-end cameras (read expensive) not meant for casual photographers. So if you’d rather not spend all that much moolah but still want to go the hardware way then Eye-Fi is another option. Eye-Fi is a special memory card that comes with a built-in wi-fi sensor that will sense the surrounding wi-fi networks as you take pictures and collect the GPS information. The Eye-Fi service will then translate this information into a specific physical location at the time your photos are uploaded. This card comes for roughly $130 (approx Rs.6000) and can be used with most cameras with memory slots.

Alternatively there are a fair number of software applications that could come in handy too. Some examples of such programs include Microsofts Pro Photo Tools (www.microsoft.com/prophoto/downloads/tools.aspx), Grazer (www.grazer.de) and Picasa (www.picasa.com). These apps not only embed geographic data from a GPS file into the snap (EXIF header), but also have a host of other features that will put your pictures on the world map (literally!). Say for instance you were a Picasa user all you’d need to do is select a photo and then click the ‘Geo-tag’ button in the bottom right corner. Instantly Google Earth will pop open (if previously installed on your PC of course) with a yellow crosshair. You can then simply navigate to the location the photo was taken, click the yellow cross hair and viola! you are done. In fact Google Earth will also save these photos in the ‘My Locations’ folder so that you could pluck them out whenever you like.

The third (and probably the most hassle free) option of sprinkling geographical data across your pictures is to hop online and use the free online services. Some most used geotagging services include photo sharing sites like Flickr, SmugMug and other more specialized services like Platial, Zoomr and Mappr

Most of these online services are connected to one of the online versions of mapping software. For instance if you were a Flickr user you’d be using the version of Yahoo! Maps to pushpin your picture on the world map. Moreover, all these services are extremely simple to use. So with Flickr you would just add a picture to your Flickr account and go to the Flickr Map. Then navigate to the location and drag and drop the photos to geotag them. And a glad tiding that needs to be pointed out here is the granularity of the maps (especially those that map India) which has increased leaps! Until very recently you’d be struggling even to find landmarks in India, now however you can find granular maps even for lesser known cities in our country. So whether you are tagging picture in India or anywhere in the whole wide world, linking pictures to maps is the thing to do! For one thing, it will help you make some sense of the mounds of pictures stacked on your hard drives. More interestingly this novel exercise brings a whole new dimension to your pictures – looking at a map sprinkled with latitude-longitude data might for instance bring a new way to relive memories, see places, evolve and even direct someone to that quaint hotel in a sketchy part of town you stayed in!