Places feature in 09 version

Question

I don't know much about this to begin with but here it goes.
I don't currently have any geo tagged photos. There are some photos that I would like to put on a map in places. My question: By assigning a photo to a place in Iphoto 09, does that change the metadata of the photo, that is, does the place chosen on the map in the program (in lat and long) become part of the metadata of the photo?
Thanks,

Answer 1

Hi,
I think it depends what you mean by "the metadata of the photograph." Metadata is stored in several places, including the photo file itself and the "iPhoto database" (an internal-to-iPhoto cache of photo properties).
I believe that when you add a "place" to a picture in iPhoto, this information is stored into the iPhoto database, but not the photo file. So, if you root around in the iPhoto library (i.e., using finder to look inside the one giant "file" in your "Pictures" folder), the picture files you find there will not contain geogtags (unless you added them yourself before importing into iPhoto). Likewise, if you just drag a picture out of iPhoto, it will not contain location information. (Double check me on these two points though!)
However, as LarryHN mentioned, if you use iPhoto's export command, it will (optionally, based on iPhoto preferences) include geotags in the exported file, based on the information in the iPhoto database.
Hope that helps!
-Mike