Lightroom 4 Beta - Maps

As a long time user of lightroom, since beta 1, it is with great excitement that I downloaded beta 4  (if you don't have it, run and get it now...http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom4/ ) Note it is a 400mb download...  The 10 mins I have played with this, I like what I see, watch this blog for more features....

So the first thing I noticed when I opened it was maps... As someone who loves geo-tagging my images, this is pretty slick.  As a long time supporter and fan of Jeffrey’s “GPS-Support” Geoencoding Plugin for Lightroom (http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/gps) I can't help but feel for Jeffrey, adobe go and add a maps tag, which for many will be enough.  Jeffrey's plugin for GPS geotagging is fantastic, it does a lot more than the support Adobe has added, but basically the new built in version gives you the following features:

• Drag and drop images onto a map to geotag them
• Drag and drop images into custom locations under saved locations
• Track log support (have not tested this, don't have my GPS with me right now)
• Summary display of maps (much like the interface of flickr) which shows you 10 images in this spot, 50 in that, etc.  The maps tab uses google maps, so you get a much better resolution that flickr.
• It also gives you the meta-data in the one spot, so you can add location, country, town, etc location on the one screen. (even title and caption, ie the metadata component from the library view)
• As it utilises google maps, you have the ability to select hybrid, roads, etc views for your maps.

Features lacking from maps

• Automatic population of metadata from the geocoded images. (eg ISO Country code, country, state/province, etc)

The Map Tab with some geocoded images.

Standard Road Map view in lightroom 4 beta

View for satellite allows you to change your view type

Full screen capture of new lightroom 4 mapping feature

So what can you do with GPS information
You can create geo-zones
Within lightroom maps you can create your own locations (found on the left hand side) this allows you to create a point of reference, so you can easily control what gets published.
You might for example create a location for your fav beach, that way you can just drag your whole day's worth of photos into this known location.

Location/GeoZone set up as non-private

Alternatively you might create a 20km zone around your home, so that you can geo-tag your photos with your home location, but you know that when they are published this GPS information will be stripped out.  Don't worry, flickr allows you to set these zones up also, so if you inadvertently upload an image to flickr with your home's gps coordinates, it will not display it.

Location/GeoZone set up as private

Zoom out from your location and you can see that your location is configured

My fav beach location as a location on the map