How to find where an old photo was taken
Georeferencing needs a starting location. For an old image that may be the hardest part.
Look at the file first
Digital photos often carry a GPS tag in their metadata. The tool reads it in the page. Scanned images usually do not, but check the filename and any catalogue entry that came with the image.
Use the catalogue
Archived imagery usually comes with a record: a date, a mission or flight, and often a centre point or footprint. Even a rough footprint is enough to start. A box a few tens of kilometres across is fine for a satellite frame.
Read the picture
- Coastlines, rivers and lakes are the most stable clues.
- Large roads, railways, airfields and dams are easy to spot.
- Mountain ridges and valley shapes survive for centuries.
Keep the search area small
A tight box gives the tool a sharper reference. For a United States image, an area under about 12 km lets you use NAIP at roughly 1 m. Sentinel-2 works at larger sizes but is coarser, at 10 m.
If it still fails
Try a different part of the image, a different reference, or place a few points by hand in QGIS and then use the tool on the sub-areas. Open the tool.