How to get your photos on Google Earth

Google Earth is a great program that lets you zoom into any part of the world and see a satellite image of the location. There are also photographs taken in that spot, and this article explains how to get your own photos shown to a worldwide audience when they view the map.

Step 1 Photographs are loaded into Google Earth from a separate site called Panoramio at www.panoramio.com. On the home page, you can sign up for a free account with Panoramio that lets you upload your photos.

Step 2 Once you have your account on Panoramio, you can upload the images. The site allows you to store 2GB of your images for free, and create your own world map showing your travels, as well as put your images for view in Google Earth itself. When you browse for, and upload an image, you are given the chance to name the photo (ie add a title) and to map it. If you haven't already added GPS coordinates to your photos, choose "Map it" and enter the town and country where the photo was taken. You can zoom in and move the satellite image around until you see the spot where the photo was taken, and then click on that exact spot. If you save the position at this point, you have added the location to the image on the site.

Step 3 It is somewhat faster to upload images that already contain the location in the Metadata associated with the image. The metadata holds such things as the Title, description, camera type etc. but also has some field for the global coordinates for the location where the picture was taken. I have written a separate how-to about adding this data if your camera doesn't automatically add the location. Once you have done this you can ignore the "map it?" choice as Panoramio will read the GPS coordinates automatically.

Step 4 That is it! Your photo will now be shown on the Your Photos tab on the site. If you click "on the map" on this page, you will see your photos correctly located on a world map. You have to wait about a month for the system to pick up your photograph and include it in Google Earth. If you search the help files on the site, there is a section explaining why your photo has not appeared on Google Earth. That explains how far they have got in checking the files. After about a month, when you next look at Google Earth, you should see your photos on-line!