How can I preserve GPS metadata when replacing JPEGs with DNGs in Lightroom 6?
Asked 9/12/2015
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I originally imported many photos as JPEGs in Lightroom 6. Those JPEGs include GPS metadata, and I already organized them into collections. Later, I added the matching DNG files so Lightroom would merge them, but the DNG files do not contain GPS metadata. After the merge, the resulting files in Lightroom no longer show the GPS location.
Is there a way to make Lightroom use the GPS metadata from the corresponding JPEGs without reimporting everything and losing my organization?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
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I'm not sure how to do this in Lightroom, or if you even can, but I have an alternate solution: remove the DNGs from Lightroom, then use Exiftool too copy the GPS tags from the JPEG files to the DNG files, and then re-import.
If I understand the situation correctly, this won't undo your organization, since you can leave the JPEGs as placeholders for the sorting.
To do this with ExifTool, assuming you have files named *.JPG and *.RAW in the same directory (in the example, the current directory, .):
exiftool -tagsfromfile %d%f.JPG -gps:all -r -ext RAW .
This will leave a bunch of backup files — if you're sure, you can add -overwrite_original to avoid that.
Originally by user1943. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1943
10y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Lightroom 6 does not appear to offer a direct way to tell a merged DNG to inherit GPS data from the matching JPEG. A practical workaround is to copy the GPS metadata into the DNG files first, then bring those files into Lightroom.
One suggested method is to use ExifTool to copy only the GPS tags from each JPEG to its matching DNG/RAW file, for example when files share the same base filename:
exiftool -tagsfromfile %d%f.JPG -gps:all -r -ext RAW .
You can adapt the extension for DNG if needed. ExifTool normally creates backup files; add -overwrite_original if you do not want backups.
A safer workflow is to remove the DNGs from Lightroom, copy the GPS metadata into them with ExifTool, then re-import the DNGs. If the JPEGs remain in the catalog as placeholders, your existing organization may stay intact.
So, the workable answer is: copy the GPS tags externally before re-importing, rather than trying to do it entirely inside Lightroom.
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