Question :

Since my digital photo camera doesn’t support GPS, I was using the Places function in iPhoto 8 to add the locations to my photos. But since I upgraded to iLife’11 and iPhoto 9, I can’t get any photo to accept the location I’m trying to add to it when in Places-mode ; I type the location, then my entry immediately disappears and nothing happens. How can I fix this ?

Answer :

iPhoto 9 versions 9.0, 9.1 and 9.2 have a bug which prevents you form adding locations to individual photos, so there’s only 2 solutions :

1- upgrade to iPhoto 9.3 (because in this latest update this bug seems to be fixed… this is by far the easiest solution)

2- or you can use use this workaround, which is based on the fact that in iPhoto 9.0, 9.1 and 9.2 you can still use the Places-functionality on complete Events :

– in iPhoto, go to Library (on the menu on the left) –> Events

– open the Event in which the photos are that you want to tag with a location

– select all photos (and only those) that were taken in one specific location

– go to Events (on the menu bar on top) –> Split Event and you will then have a separate Event containing only these photos

– then select this new event, and click on the ‘black circle with an I’ icon (a.k.a. Info) in the lower right corner

– now the Faces & Places pane will slide in from the right

– now select ‘Assign a Place…’ just above the map, and type in the name of the location that you want to tag on these photos

– if one of the suggestions that come up in the pull down menu is the location you want, click it – else, just leave it at the name you’ve typed yourself (FYI- iPhoto gets these suggested locations from Google and form the locations that you have previously assigned)

– now make sure that the flag is on the right place in the map

– then correct the name that is indicated for that flag to the name that you would like to remember this location by and press the ENTER-key to validate

– now your photos have the right location tag to it (check this by selecting one and seeing where on the map the Places-flag is)

– then go back to the Events-view by clicking on the black All Events arrow in the upper left

– then select the ‘untitled event’ and drag it (back) onto the event that these newly-location-tagged photos used to be in, to merge the two events back together (you might need to set the ‘Key Photo’ event-icon again)

– then go through this process again for every location that you want to tag…

…as I mentioned before : this is just a workaround, upgrading to iPhoto 9.3 is far easier…