Share and map your photos easily

Launch a web browser, type www.panoramio.com into the Address or Location bar and press Enter. If you already have a Google account, for Gmail or Picasa, say, then click the ‘sign in’ link to the upper right of the page and type in your email address and password; otherwise, click the ‘sign up’ link to be guided through the process of creating a new account.

If signing up for a new account, tap in your email address, then enter and confirm the password you would like to use to secure your account. If you want to stay signed in to the account at all times, leave the ‘Stay signed in’ box ticked. Now supply the remaining requested – location, date of birth and so on. Scroll down to find and click the ‘I accept. Create my account’ button. A verification email will then be sent to the supplied email address – click the link it contains and then sign into your account.

Whether you have created a new account or are just signing in to Panoramio for the first time, you’ll be prompted to create a username. Type in the name you would like to use and click Accept. Assuming the chosen name is available, you be logged into your account; if not, you’ll be prompted to choose a different username. Once logged in, the first thing to do is to click the ‘Upload your photos’ link.

It is possible to upload up to 10 photographs simultaneously. Start by clicking the first of the Browse buttons and select an image to upload before repeating for up to nine more images. Click the Upload button and wait while the images are uploaded. Depending on the speed of your internet connection and the size of the images involved, this process could take a few minutes.

When the upload is complete, Panoramio will display the images as thumbnails. Each one can be given a title and description to make them easier to identify – just click in the relevant boxes and type. Tags can also be assigned to the images, which will help with sorting and searching later. Multiple tags should be separated by commas. When happy, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Save button.

If the photos were snapped using a camera that features built-in GPS – such as a smartphone – Panoramio can position images on a map automatically. This is a great way to plot a visual record of your travels. It is also possible to manually add location details to a photo: click the Map this photo link, type in the name of a town or city, or a postcode, and click the Search button.

A Google Maps window pops up, centred on the search location. To move the map around, just left-click and drag with the mouse. The red pushpin marker can be used to indicate the precise location where the photo was taken – just drag the pin into place and click the Save position button to add the image to the map.

Click the Your Photos link at the top of the page to view all uploaded images. Click the thumbnail of a mapped image to view photos taken by other people in the same area. A larger version of your photo is displayed to the left, while to the right a map is displayed complete with images that have been uploaded by other Panoramio users. Click any of these thumbnails to view a larger version, scrolling around the map to explore the surrounding area.

If you have the free download Google Earth installed, Panoramio can locate your images on the globe. When viewing photos in the Popular, Recent or Your Photos tabs, just click a ‘photos in Google Earth (KML)’ link beneath a thumbnail. Save the .kml file to the Windows Desktop and then double-click it to launch and view the image in Google Earth. Finally, click the Settings link at the top right of the Panoramio home page to manage the way that people can use your photos. You might, for instance, wish to prevent commercial use of your images. Scroll down to the Sharing, licences and copyright section, click to select the Some rights reserve radio button and then choose No under ‘Allow commercial uses of your photos’.

Return to your own photo collection by clicking the Your Photos link at the top. Click on a tag to see photos with matching tags. To see just your photos on the map click the ‘on the map’ link the image thumbnails. Then, in this map view, click the Popular and Recent tabs to view relevant nearby photos.