Is it possible to use a GPS position as search criteria in the Map module?

[Svein Nedrehagen]

Lightroom Version Number

15.2

Operating System

1. macOS 26 Tahoe

I'm trying to use a GPS coordinate to search for a location in Lightroom's MAP module but that does not seem to work. This is something I often miss when adding photos to LR. I'm not even sure if this is supposed to work, but searching like that works fine in Google Maps and as far as I can see the LR map module uses Google maps so I thought it would work there as well. Google maps is even clever enough to recognise several of the possible formats you can write a GPS position in.

LR uses a position format like this 70°23'5.4941" N 31°5'16.7241" E (DMS format) when it tags photos with GPS coordinates. I can use those coordinates exactly as the are to search in Google maps, but not in LR Map module. But the problem is that those coordinates can be written in so many different formats. I have tried several of them but no luck so far. 70° 23' 5.49" N, 31° 5' 16.72" E (DMS format), 70° 23.0915' N, 31° 05.2787' E (DDM format), +70.384859, +31.087979 (DD format). There are also variations within those formats when it comes to using comma or period, degree sign or just a space, comma between latitude and longitude and so on. Since Lightroom use Google Maps for its backend, I expected similar flexibility. Is coordinate searching supported in the Map module, or is there a specific syntax I’m missing?

 

[Califdan]

What are you trying to discover by 'searching' using GPS coordinates? You already know the coordiantes. You can have it supply the text for the location metadata fields. If you click on an image in the filmstrip it positons the map to the GPS coordinates of that image. I'm not clear what you'd like to happen with a sucessful search using a set of GPS coordinates?

 

[Svein Nedrehagen]

What are you trying to discover by 'searching' using GPS coordinates? You already know the coordiantes. You can have it supply the text for the location metadata fields. If you click on an image in the filmstrip it positons the map to the GPS coordinates of that image. I'm not clear what you'd like to happen with a sucessful search using a set of GPS coordinates?

I just want to position the map to that location so I can drag the photos to the map and geotag them. Often I would search for the name of a place (city, district, lake, whatever) to do the same but when you have been far out in the wilderness there are no named places nearby

 

[John R Ellis]

Interesting, I see the same bug, in both LR 14.0 and 15.2. This used to work years ago -- I don't know when it stopped working. I'll file a bug report.

A workaround is to select a photo, paste the coordinates into the Metadata panel's GPS field, and then click the right-arrow button on the right. That will position the map at that location.

 

[Svein Nedrehagen]

Interesting, I see the same bug, in both LR 14.0 and 15.2. This used to work years ago -- I don't know when it stopped working. I'll file a bug report.

A workaround is to select a photo, paste the coordinates into the Metadata panel's GPS field, and then click the right-arrow button on the right. That will position the map at that location.

Thanks John, useful tip!

 

[clee01l]

Interesting, I see the same bug, in both LR 14.0 and 15.2. This used to work years ago -- I don't know when it stopped working. I'll file a bug report.

A workaround is to select a photo, paste the coordinates into the Metadata panel's GPS field, and then click the right-arrow button on the right. That will position the map at that location.

I switched to the Map Module and pasted the 70° 23' 5.49" N, 31° 5' 16.72" E coordinates given above with no images showing in the film strip. The map relocated to the correct place. Since I had photos from the area with coordinates, I selected all Photographs and tried again. Nothing. I retried and the map never homed in on any location.

I used to used this some versions ago and I agree that it used to work with coordinates.

 

[John R Ellis]

I discovered a lat/long format that works with the Map module's search box: decimal format with commas, minus signs, but no plus signs. For example, these all work:

70.384859, 31.087979
-27.033813, 153.465791
37.101, -118.733
44.498656,-118.639716
30.832783, 111.109783
48.918326,11.409075
-33.840663, 151.071579

(I stumbled on this looking up the last report I could find of the Map search box working with coordinates, from 2017 in LR 6.10.)

I don't think Adobe would consider it a bug that other other coordinate formats, including the one it uses by default for displaying coordinates, don't work in the search box. There are a number of reported Map bugs that have been outstanding for years. If you reported this as a bug, they'd most likely declare it "as designed".

But regardless, it's a very poor design. You could file a feature request:
https://community.adobe.com/feature-requests-676/p-how-do-i-write-a-feature-request-664782

though I doubt they'd prioritize it.

 

[Svein Nedrehagen]

I discovered a lat/long format that works with the Map module's search box: decimal format with commas, minus signs, but no plus signs. For example, these all work:

Thank you so much John! It was the + signs that caused the trouble for me! Problem solved! This is awesome, thanks again