We have a general FAQ section with a licensing page outlining the answers to most common questions here. If you find you still need assistance, please email support here.

In general terms, geotagging is the process of adding location-specific data to any type of media. Maperture adds a specific set of geographic information (latitude and longitude coordinates) to a digital image's metadata.

To quickly check if multiple images have already been geotagged, simply select the photos you'd like to check and launch Maperture. Any image that contains a geotag will be displayed with a badge in the image viewer. Alternately, you can check an individual image's metadata by selecting the Metadata tab in the Projects Inspector and choosing "EXIF - Expanded" from the topmost drop-down. If the Latitude and Longitude fields are not visible, choose the "EXIF" tab (located at the bottom of the Project Inspector) and select the appropriate checkboxes.

Maperture supports the following file formats:
ARW / CR2 / CS1 / DNG / HDP / JPX / JPEG / JPG / MEF / MIE / MOS
MRW / NEF / ORF / PEF / PSD / RAF / RAW / SR2 / TIF / TIFF / WDP

Unfortunately the CRW and other specific file formats do not support storing geographic information, such as latitude and longitude, in their EXIF fields. Currently unsupported image types are displayed with a yellow exclamation mark on the image thumbnail in the image browser when loaded. When these formats support writing of GPS metadata via EXIFtool, Maperture will also support them.

Maperture modifies the following four EXIF fields:
GPSLatitude
GPSLatitudeRef
GPSLongitude
GPSLongitudeRef

By default, Maperture does not assign a keyword to images processed with the plug-in. To add one or more keywords to geotagged images, open Preferences and navigate to the Keywords panel. Click the checkbox and define your keyword(s), separate multiple keywords with a comma.

By default, Maperture will use any previously embedded GPS coordinates in the selected images to start your session. However if all the images selected do not have GPS information, your “Home” address from Address Book on your personal card (the one with a dark silhouette icon) will be used to center the map on this location. The “Default Map Location” behavior can be changed in the Preferences of the plug-in under General to either “Work” (from Address Book) or “Other Location”, which is a custom location that can be an address, location name (i.e. The Space Needle) or latitude/longitude coordinates. If you launch the plug-in with no information in your Address Book under “Home” or “Work” and none of the launched images have been previously geotagged, Fremont/Seattle will be your starting location of your session because it is the center of the universe...

This was originally caused by a conflict with the Safari 4 Beta or not having a version of Safari installed. We have since resolved that issue with the Safari 4 Beta in our current released version. But due to the initial public release of Safari 4, Maperture was temporarily incompatible again as result of this update. Apple since made changes to the Safari code which impacted it's functionality. Update version 1.2.3 of the plug-in once again brings back full functionality with the latest updates from Apple installed. If you are still experiencing these symptoms, please update to the latest version of the plug-in via the preferences update section. However, Maperture will still require a version of Safari to be installed on the machine. Another side effect since the public release of Safari 4 is that Maperture and our Pro version of Maperture now can cause a conflict when both are installed where the map does not display after using the alternate plug-in in the same session. We are currently working on this issue.

Maperture can lookup addresses, location names (i.e. The Space Needle) and latitude/longitude coordinates from the search field and will take you there on the map. You will still have to click on the map for a specified location, or use the "Drop Pin at Current Location" option from the gear menu to geotag your image(s). The magnifying glass icon also stores your searches for later use.

Maperture can focus the map on a geotagged image by either double-clicking on the image thumbnail in the browser or right-clicking the thumbnail and choosing “Show Location Info” from the contextual menu. Both of these option will center the map on the selected image, but “Show Location Info” will also show the information bubble popup that includes when available: File Name, Image Date, Latitude, Longitude, Altitude, Address, City, State/Province and Country.

Yes. When you save, Maperture modifies the master file. However, as a precaution, Maperture's default behavior is to generate a backup of the master file prior to making any changes to your files. You can disable the master backup option in Maperture's preferences.

When embedding GPS metadata (EXIF) via Maperture the metadata is saved directly to the image file and displays in the metadata browser. When exporting master images, this newly embedded EXIF information is also exported intact since it has already been tagged directly. However when exporting versions of any geotagged image, Aperture does not export the new GPS tags. And to further complicate the matter, optional reverse geocoded information (IPTC) is stored separately resulting in mis-matched metadata depending on the type of image being exported.

We are speculating that since Maperture edits the image after capture, it is out of sync with Aperture's metadata library. Which is why we call the “Update Master from EXIF” command to restore sync between metadata, but it is still not picking up the GPS added by the plug-in. It seems the issue actually stems from the fact Aperture does not support editing of GPS EXIF metadata via the UI, but Maperture must edit this information in the background via EXIFtool for geotagging to be saved. Just like camera attachments that automatically geotag images must write to the actual file, so must our plug-in in a more manual fashion.

There is now a workaround to this issue in Aperture so that all geotagged information from Maperture will be exported with your images. It seems though you must be running the most up to date version of Aperture for this to work properly, currently 2.1.4. After geotagging via Maperture, quit Aperture and force a rebuild of the library by holding Command + Option when re-launching. Aperture then seems to sync all the newly added GPS information to it's master metadata library, solving the problem. You can now edit your images and export with all the EXIF & IPTC metadata intact. You would need to repeat this step after adding new geotags which you would like to export.

There is no change to the actual pixel information of the image(s) processed by the plug-in. Maperture writes EXIF and IPTC tags invisibly with no loss of quality.

Yes, referenced images are able to be geotagged & reverse geocoded just the same as images that are stored within an Aperture managed library with no loss of information.

We have done everything possible to ensure Maperture only impacts your image's GPS metadata fields (see below for a complete list). However, as there are a large and ever increasing number of file formats available to digital photographers, the possibility exists that we have not tested how Maperture handles editing some of the file types out there. As such, we strongly encourage you to do a before and after comparison of a sampling of your geotagged images prior to disabling the master backup option.

Aperture has a built-in feature in the Metadata drop-down menu called “Show on Map...”, which can also be selected by right-clicking on the image. Choosing this will display any geotagged photo you select in Google Maps via a web browser. Additionally, there are a number of photo sharing web sites that support displaying geotagged images on a map such as Picasa Web Albums and Panoramio. (Übermind's Aperture to Picasa Web Albums plug-in is a quick and easy way to upload your geotagged images to Google's photo sharing service.)

When you click “Show on Map”, it is actually just sending the GPS coordinates to Google Maps online. Which then shows you that location on the map, plus any images that may match it's latitude and longitude from online services such as Panaramio.

Since we use a web service to display the interface via Google Maps, an internet connection is required and the plug-in must send/receive data from the server. Internet speeds & service usage also have a factor in this loading process.

Unfortunately at this time the plug-in requires an internet connection to initialize the plug-in and services. In a future release, we could include an offline / tracklog only mode for such usage in the field if no internet connection is present.

This was originally caused by a conflict with the Safari 4 Beta or not having a version of Safari installed. We have since resolved that issue with the Safari 4 Beta in our current released version. But due to the initial public release of Safari 4, Maperture was temporarily incompatible again as result of this update. Apple since made changes to the Safari code which impacted it's functionality. Update version 1.2.3 of the plug-in once again brings back full functionality with the latest updates from Apple installed. If you are still experiencing these symptoms, please update to the latest version of the plug-in via the preferences update section. However, Maperture will still require a version of Safari to be installed on the machine. Another side effect since the public release of Safari 4 is that Maperture and our Pro version of Maperture now can cause a conflict when both are installed where the map does not display after using the alternate plug-in in the same session. We are currently working on this issue.

Previous to the release of Safari 4 this was not an issue and both plug-ins were able to be installed and caused no conflicts. But since the public release of Safari 4, having both Maperture Pro and our standard version of Maperture now can cause a conflict when both are installed where the map does not display after using the alternate plug-in in the same session. We are currently working on this issue.. You will be able to select either plug-in from the “Edit With” menu in this case though. See the above topic for more information relating to issues on why the map does not show up.

The current version of Maperture does not have tracklog support. However, Maperture Pro does support the importing of tracklogs to automatically geotag your images in a variety of formats. For more information about Maperture Pro, click here.

When diagnosing plug-in errors, there are several system variables to take into consideration first before digging deeper into the code. Repairing your permissions is a good place to start, and also good practice after installing software. To do this, launch Disk Utility from the Applications under Utilities. Then select Repair and press Repair Disk Permissions. This basically cleans up your system files so that they can access each other properly. If this still does not resolve the issue, you could test with another account or create a new test account on your machine prior to more elaborate solutions. For more on what information you should send in when requesting technical support, please read through the general FAQ section.

Maperture can be removed by deleting the plug-in file located at:
~/Library/Application Support/Aperture/Plug-ins/Edit/Maperture.ApertureEdit
(~ represents your home directory.)

If you are removing this plug-in because you have experienced problems or it did not meet your expectations, please contact us and let us know why.