Cropping pictures leading to loss of geolocation data in new version Photos app

Nature Talk
21

yup.

assuming these photos were the same besides their subject matter, i’m not sure what to tell you. you could try recropping the photos from this same set and see if you get the same 2:18 result. if so, i guess there might be some difference between the 2 and the 18. otherwise, it would seem to be random or maybe based on differences in workflow.

22

At times like this, I often feel that computers and such like are more of an art than a science :confused:. This could, however, be the clue to understanding the cause of the problem. Things to maybe consider:

  • were all the photos taken on the exact same device with the exact same settings?
  • did you do anything else to these photos before you cropped them with Photos?
  • did you do anything else to the images in Photos, such as changing the brightness, contrast etc.?
  • were you doing anything else on the same computer at the same time? Did you have different programmes running?
    And yes, try for repeatability.
    You have my sympathy :thinking: :thinking:.
2 Likes
23

It’s been doing that to me more or less forever, before the new version. I just put in a non cropped picture too and get the data from that. It’s been through two desktops with two different windows versions. And it’s not consistent! Sometimes it keeps the metadata, sometimes it doesn’t, even in the same session (so same SD card, same camera, same everything). I’ve tried going slower, and cropping less of the photo, to see if that helps but I didn’t see any difference.

24

have you ever tried recropping a photo that retained its coordinates vs on that didn’t to see if you got the same retention or non-retention?

25

No, and I probably should have thought of that. Seems like something straightforward to test out next time

26

Just thought I should add an update. This issue was going to cause me problems as I was going away on a trip and I wouldn’t be able to easily keep track of where photos were taken.
I installed Irfanview, which is a nice small program that crops photos without removing location data. My observations done while travelling kept their locations, and I have kept my sanity by continuing to use it after returning home.

2 Likes
27

I have the same problem. I first saw it on a new laptop this Spring, running Windows 11. About a month ago, it showed up on my desktop, which has Windows 10 Home. Notably, while Windows offers the option of downloading the old version as Windows Photo Legacy, I’ve tried that on both PCs and the problem still occurs with that on both computers. Whatever Microsoft has done to break this feature, they’ve broken it on the “Legacy” version, too. :(

I’ve been following the work-around suggested above, of using the “save as” option when cropping a photo, so the uncropped version is still available with the GPS data.

I’ve downloaded IrfanView, too, but it doesn’t seem as easy to access the crop function as in Windows Photo. Maybe I’m just not familiar enough with it.

1 Like
28

To crop in irfanview, draw a rectangle with your mouse (by holding down the mouse button while moving the mouse - you will see the lines creating the rectangle as you move it). When happy with the area inside the rectangle, go to the Edit menu, and choose Crop Selection.

29

Or just press Ctrl+Y.

30

Yes, keyboard options are available instead of menu commands. I don’t tend to use them because of the way I use my computer. I don’t have my hands anywhere near the keyboard most of the time.

31

Tried it after this last trip and it varied. I’m assuming it’s on my PC’s end and not on Inat’s end. Haven’t seen this with photos taken and edited on my iPhone either.

32

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34

I just tried that and it works. I use the method of uploading cropped and uncroppd from the windows pogramme as i prefer to crop in tthe photos app

1 Like
35

Such an annoying issue. Found this Microsoft Community thread on the same problem: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-to-retain-exif-data-when-editing-photos-in/8597817a-d317-41d8-b5c6-fe5517957546

Best of luck to anyone trying to get Microsoft’s attention.

1 Like
36

I hope this will be a temporary solution, but I think I found something to work around the deletion of metadata with Windows Photos. Crop your photo, save as, close that photo session (important: if you don’t close that photo session, the subsequent photos you edit will lose the data even if you save as). What I found is that if you use the cursor to forward or reverse to another photo to edit, that’s when you lose data. I hope this helps. Pete.

37

i tried this, and i still didn’t encounter any weirdness.