Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic's Map Module

The Map Module:

What is the actual purpose of the Map Module in Lightroom Classic? I have Googled this question several times over the years and always end up with the same search results. Which you can see in the attached screen shot. I have to admit, for the most part, I don’t get it. The recurring search result is “It’s something fun to do in Lightroom”. Well, if that is the main purpose, I am not interested in it. But … and there is always a but. 

If I am contracted by the Tourism Dept of any Government be it local, Provincial/State or Country, to photograph tourist attractions or conservation areas to name two uses, I would have to either have a GPS option in my camera or the ability to add those GPS coordinates after capture … otherwise I will not get that contract.

Government tourism departments of any level like to promote their areas of interest to potential visitors from all over the world. And when they post an article which include photographs, they want the reader to be able to see on a map, usually Google’s map, where in fact that tourist attraction is located.

That’s one example of the business aspect of this Lightroom feature, people in general, when out on a hike for example with their camera ( or smart phone), like to tell their friends about their venture and want them to know exactly where they were.

The one thing you don’t want to do is include this information when photographing family members for obvious safety reasons so during the export process at the bottom of the dialog, there is a check box to exclude this or any other metadata information.

Here is another example where I would want to include the GPS coordinates; if I am working on a photo series of Lighthouses in Ontario, I would want this information included so those people that I choose to share this collection with will know where one is located in case they as well would like to visit them.

So my question now is; Who actually uses this feature? And for what purpose?