• Welcome to the Lightroom Queen Forums! We're a friendly bunch, so please feel free to register and join in the conversation. If you're not familiar with forums, you'll find step by step instructions on how to post your first thread under Help at the bottom of the page. You're also welcome to download our free Lightroom Quick Start eBooks and explore our other FAQ resources.
  • Dark mode now has a single preference for the whole site! It's a simple toggle switch in the bottom right-hand corner of any page. As it uses a cookie to store your preference, you may need to dismiss the cookie banner before you can see it. Any problems, please let us know!

Whither face recognition?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Linwood Ferguson

Linwood Ferguson
Lightroom Guru
Joined
Jan 18, 2009
Messages
2,587
Location
Fort Myers, FL
Lightroom Experience
Advanced
Lightroom Version
Classic
So after a flurry of interest, did everyone do as I did, and just stop using facial recognition?

Have I missed it; has Adobe done nothing new to correct its deficiencies?

I decided it was just not usable in a real world sense, and was hoping for some quick fixes. Notably a "clear and start over" button or something more selective. And better recognition, period.

Was there just not enough interest? Or did I miss all the discussion of it?
 
Good question. There are very few, if any, questions about face recognition in this forum. Either it works flawlessly and is super easy to understand, or hardly anyone is using it...
 
I think it's one of those features they had to add because all the other software has it, but people aren't actually that worried about it.
 
Face recognition requires photos of people. If 95% of your photography is nature and urban landscape, turning on the face recognition at import is unnecessary overhead. Professional Portrait photographers also aren't as interested in face recognition as self absorbed "instagram" photographers. So, I think the audience that face recognition appeals to is a very small segment of the LR community.
 
Face recognition requires photos of people. .... So, I think the audience that face recognition appeals to is a very small segment of the LR community.

Maybe.

And I know I'm odd in many ways, but not sure this is one of them. I have thousands of photos out there which have people I know, and even more of people I do not (e.g. sports shots). I'd love to go through and find all the ones that include my family, and it would be useful to go through and tag the sports shots with the names of players more efficiently than looking up their numbers. I'd happily spend days between shoots bringing such a database up to date, and even started -- then I found out how badly it worked. How many false positives (somewhat manageable) but more importantly how many false negatives, faces just skipped entirely then marked as "done" so you could not go back and have it look again.

But... maybe I am odd.

Anyone else give up? Or just didn't start? Or ... just maybe... are using it quietly without posting because it works so well for you?
 
I find it useful, but I don't have super high expectations. Interface could be faster to use, but it does find some stuff I might have overlooked. And I like that we have a special keyword category and space for people (I wish the standardized metadata could keep track of which face is which, but not yet).

I'm waiting for the super heavy weights to get this down. Google, and to a lesser extent Flickr, can find all sorts of content within photos. As that gets better, and if they provided a better interface for naming names, they might prove to be a better alternative.

Or you could just email the NSA and ask them to provide you with a list of the people in your photos....:mrgreen:
 
I'm waiting for the super heavy weights to get this down. Google, and to a lesser extent Flickr, can find all sorts of content within photos. As that gets better, and if they provided a better interface for naming names, they might prove to be a better alternative.
Yeah, but they will want your photos.

Or you could just email the NSA and ask them to provide you with a list of the people in your photos....:mrgreen:

Actually know who probably has the biggest database going? Facebook.

I fully expect that they are soon, if not already, going to offer access as a service to do face recognition. Think about how large their already-tagged database is, courtesy of all its free labor force doing the tagging.

The latest Consumer Reports has an interesting read, how many stores now know who you are as soon as you walk in the door.

And churches are using it to track who comes into their church, how often, etc.
 
I use it. I am a little over half way through tagging my photos. Progress has been slow for a while because I have moved.
But the system Adobe did is very simple. I have put in for a few feature requests on it:
1. Add the ability to link to a person's FB name.
2. Improve the quality of the facial recognition engine. I have found it does a fairly good job at at least getting the suggestion to the correct family. But within a family, the accuracy is pretty bad.
3. Ability to clear the facial data.
4. Improve UI speed when tagging.
5. When you draw a square, and it does not recognize a face; the system just disappears. No signal that it failed, so when moving quickly you start to type a person's name in Lr goes bonkers as it follows all your key entries as short cuts....

Tim
 
I started using it, but stopped after a short periode of time. I do portraits professionally and thought it would be great, but it is too slow and inaccurate so I stick to keywords
 
Yeah, but they will want your photos.



Actually know who probably has the biggest database going? Facebook.

I fully expect that they are soon, if not already, going to offer access as a service to do face recognition. Think about how large their already-tagged database is, courtesy of all its free labor force doing the tagging.

The latest Consumer Reports has an interesting read, how many stores now know who you are as soon as you walk in the door.

And churches are using it to track who comes into their church, how often, etc.
Excellent point. After all, it was patterned on actual face books at Harvard IIRC. Doh.
 
I'm finding it works pretty well for me. One thing that has really helped in the last week is learning some of the shortcuts (see the Lightroom Queen's shortcuts guide) which makes it much faster to work through a large list of suggested names. I think a lot depends on your photographic style - many of my photos feature the same people, and it is pretty accurate, even if they have hats, silly poses or face paint on.
 
Last edited:
Another vote from a user of face recognition. After a few nights of gritting my teeth and persevering, my family photos are now all up-to-date. I just wish that the face recognition algorithm would pick up on profiles! And yes, a "clear" button would be helpful.
 
Another vote from a user of face recognition. After a few nights of gritting my teeth and persevering, my family photos are now all up-to-date. I just wish that the face recognition algorithm would pick up on profiles! And yes, a "clear" button would be helpful.

What do you mean by a "clear" button?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top