Digital picture albums help turn a shoebox full of old photos into an organized presentation. Who, What, and when are normally taken care of by the photo album software, but how do you fill in the where of a photo? A trend called geotagging aims to help digital shutterbugs add location information to your photos. Who would want to do such a thing, and how do you do it? Read on and we'll breakdown the basics of geotagging.

Why geotag?

While a Google search for geotag returns thousands of results, very few attempt to actually answer the question of why someone would want to tag a photo by location. The most prevailing reason seems to be internet altruism, by trying to give people looking at a map exactly what a place looks like from behind an anonymous photographer's lens. Take a look on Google Maps at my old neighborhood on New York's Upper East Side.

Anyone can turn on geotagged photos in Google Maps by clicking the "More" button, next to "traffic" and clicking the checkbox for Photos.

Online collaboration is fun, and it's great to be a part of the community, but what's in it for the average user? Geotagging adds one more part to the search puzzle that could help you locate your own photos. Say you take thousands of photos a year, and you remember taking a photo of a specific location, but can't remember when the picture was taken, or the name of the folder. Since you've integrated location data into your photos, you could more easily locate the photo without knowing the other information.

Geotagging might seem like it's specifically targeted toward the pro, but trust us, once you start geotagging photos you'll see why it's also a lot of fun. Some of the solutions we'll outline are cheap, or even free, though for advanced users (as usual) you'll need to spend some extra money to get into the game.

Software solutions

We heartily recommend users utilize photo library software if they're going to think about geotagging (check out our photo management guide for some recommendations). Windows users can use Google's Picasa for free, which integrates geotagging in the latest version. Simply select a photo, add it to the tray, then click the "geotag" button in the bottom right corner. Then, Google Earth will pop open with a yellow crosshair. Navigate to the location the photo was taken, click the yellow cross hair and click done. Once you exit, Google Earth will save the photos in the "My Locations" folder of Google Earth, letting you view the photo at any time.

Meanwhile, on the Mac side, a solution which also utilizes Google Earth is called, appropriately, Geotagger. To start tagging, open Google Earth and navigate to the location that you'd like to tag. Next, drag your photos either from the Finder or from iPhoto to the application's icon. The software will run and automatically tag the photos with the location from Google Maps. The developer notes that if you're adding photos from iPhoto, the photos will be tagged, but iPhoto caches the EXIF metadata, so the locations won't appear immediately, but rest assured they've been tagged.

If you're a Flickr user, geotagging your online photo library is pretty simple. Head to your Flickr Map, navigate to the location, and simply drag and drop the photos to geotag them. Out of all the software solutions this is our favorite solution, though local photos won't be geotagged.

Hardware solutions

All the software options seem like a lot of work if each individual photo is taken far apart, so there are some other hardware based solutions to automate the process with your digital camera.

Firstly, the iPhone 3G automatically geotags photos. Any images synced with iPhoto will show up with matching location information. If you're uploading by e-mail to Flickr using your iPhone, you'll have to configure Flickr to accept geocoded EXIF data by its email service.

One of our favorite solutions that'll add geotagging — and WiFi uploading — to any camera is the Eye-Fi. Truth be told, there's no fancy GPS positioning inside of this standard dimension two gigabyte SD card. Instead, the Eye-Fi uses location-based WiFi triangulation, much like the original iPhone, to try to guess your location. The results won't be as accurate as regular GPS, especially in locations outside of residential and metropolitan areas. That being said, its dual functionality of WiFi uploading and geotagging might be worth the $100 - $130 pricetag.

As we move from seamless to bulky, users who need true GPS coordinates will need to find an external device like the ATP PhotoFinder. The lime-green device works by sampling its location into internal memory and stamping a time with the location. Users are expected to set their camera's internal clock to synchronize with the PhotoFinder's clock display. Users then insert a memory card into the device's SD card slot, which the device then reads and matches GPS locations to times. A minute or two later, the pictures are all tagged up, without any maps or other software. We've seen this device available for about $80.

Some cameras also have GPS built-in, and will automatically geotag photos. However, they're not high-end DSLRs typically, so while convenient, the image quality isn't as trustworthy as a Canon, Nikon or other name-brand DSLR manufacturer.

The only DSLR GPS units we've found are for Nikon cameras. Nikon manufactures the GP-1, which is compatible with all cameras in Nikon's line that are D90 and above. The upside is the unit fits into a standard hot shoe and works perfectly with the camera, but the downside is the unit costs a lofty $200. On the less expensive tip, the Geomet'r GPS receiver works with the D3, D200, D2Hs & D2Xs, and Fujifilm S5 Pro cameras, and costs about $150.

All-in-all, there are a wealth of geotagging options, and a vibrant online community supporting the practice. if you've got a favorite option that we haven't mentioned, be sure to sound off in the comments.