PSE7 faces vs. PSE8 faces

[azflyer]

I recently upgraded from 7 to 8. The face recognition in 8 is confusing and is resulting in duplication.

In PSE7 I spent many hours manually identifying all the faces in my 12,000+ catalog. After installing PSE8 I find that the face recognition is looking at pictures that I have already tagged and asking me again "Who is this?". It appears that it doesn't look at all the faces in a picture - just one or two. Also it doesn't appear to look at all the pictures.

When 8 asks me who a person is (one I had already identified in 7), I enter the name only to find that a new entry is made in my People tags rather than using my original one.

How can I get 8 to stop looking at pictures that were already tagged in 7?

BTW, my People tags are hierarchical by family name. e.g. The Smith family is a sub-category with Joan and Steve and Mary indented underneath.

[johnrellis]

Unfortunately, the PSE 8 face recognition doesn't use the face identification from PSE 6/7. So even though PSE 6 identified the location of the faces and you applied tags to them, the PSE 8 face recognition ignores that and will ask you to identify them again.

Also it doesn't appear to look at all the pictures.

Are you waiting for "Who is this" to pop up over a thumbnail in the Organizer? You need to select the photos you want to tag and invoke Find > Find People For Tagging. (By the way, you can turn off the annoying random pop-ups via Edit > Preferences > Keyword Tags And Albums.)

It appears that it doesn't look at all the faces in a picture - just one or two.

PSE will only reliably identify faces that are looking straight at the camera, not in profile, not tilted too much.

When 8 asks me who a person is (one I had already identified in 7), I enter the name only to find that a new entry is made in my People tags rather than using my original one.

Are you sure you've typed in the name exactly as it appears in the original PSE 7 tag? In my catalog, if I type it in exactly, the PSE 8 face recognition will use that existing tag rather than create a new one.

[azflyer]

Originally Posted by johnrellis

Are you waiting for "Who is this" to pop up over a thumbnail in the Organizer? You need to select the photos you want to tag and invoke Find > Find People For Tagging.

Not at all. I had already selected a group of photos with faces in them and PSE8 continually cycles through some of the photos and some of the faces asking the question.

PSE will only reliably identify faces that are looking straight at the camera, not in profile, not tilted too much.

Of course that is obvious. I am not questioning how it selects a face only that it appears, for some unknown reason, to skip some faces that are looking directly at the camera. I've always had to manually identify the people's faces that are in profile.

Are you sure you've typed in the name exactly as it appears in the original PSE 7 tag? In my catalog, if I type it in exactly, the PSE 8 face recognition will use that existing tag rather than create a new one.

That's the reason why I added, that I have a hierarchical structure to my People tags. That is: all the members of the Smith family appear indented under the Smith sub-category. This leaves the open, but unasked question, "How does one tag those members of the Smith family?".

[johnrellis]

That's the reason why I added, that I have a hierarchical structure to my People tags. That is: all the members of the Smith family appear indented under the Smith sub-category. This leaves the open, but unasked question, "How does one tag those members of the Smith family?".

In my PSE 8, when I type the name of a pre-existing People tag exactly, PSE 8 uses that tag rather than creating a new one. For example, if I have a tag named People > Ellis > John Ellis that existed prior to invoking the Find People For Tagging command for the first time, then if I type "John Ellis" in the Who Is This? box, PSE 8 will use that tag rather than creating a new one.

[johnrellis]

That's the reason why I added, that I have a hierarchical structure to my People tags. That is: all the members of the Smith family appear indented under the Smith sub-category. This leaves the open, but unasked question, "How does one tag those members of the Smith family?".

But note that there is a bug -- PSE 8 won't "auto complete" the name of a pre-existing tag until you've used it at least once in the Find People For Tagging command.

[azflyer]

Originally Posted by johnrellis

In my PSE 8, when I type the name of a pre-existing People tag exactly, PSE 8 uses that tag rather than creating a new one. For example, if I have a tag named People > Ellis > John Ellis that existed prior to invoking the Find People For Tagging command for the first time, then if I type "John Ellis" in the Who Is This? box, PSE 8 will use that tag rather than creating a new one.

I see a subtle difference between your naming convention and mine. When I name an individual it appears as People > Smith > Mary - or People > Smith > John. You repeat the last name at the lowest level. Perhaps that would work for me as well and I don't think the work required would be that great. I'll try it.

There are still a couple of problems that I have with the face recognition software.

In PSE7 I had previously tagged 3 pictures of John Miller (People > Political > JohnMiller). In all the pictures he is facing the camera. Last night I used PSE8 to highlight and select those same pictures. After a few seconds PSE8 put the box around John Miller's face in the first picture and asked who it was. This was done on the thumbnail not on a picture displayed full screen. I typed his name exactly as I had done originally. When I looked at the People tags PSE8 had created a new tag with his name on it (an exact duplication). This tag was directly under the People category. PSE8 had apparently ignored the one that existed under People > Political. Looking at the tags on the thumbnail "JohnMiller" appears twice.

In a second picture John Miller appears with two other people. One of those people was already identified in PSE7 and the other was not. I do not know this third person and won't create a tag for him. PSE8 repeatedly asks who this third person is and I can't find a way to stop this process. However, if I display that picture all by itself (e.g. F11) then I get a chance to tell PSE8 to ignore this person. I don't get the chance to do that when I have selected and displayed several photos at the same time.

BTW, all of the above is done with the option to automatically scan for faces turned off.

Thanks for your assistance.

[johnrellis]

I see a subtle difference between your naming convention and mine. When I name an individual it appears as People > Smith > Mary - or People > Smith > John. You repeat the last name at the lowest level.

PSE and other programs are happiest when you have unique names for the "leaf" tags. While PSE will let you create two tags named "John" (e.g. People > Smith > John and People > Ellis > John), it warns you about it. It doesn't make it easy to distinguish the two, and it will write just "John" into the EXIF metadata (for sharing the tags with other programs and services).

I just tried using People > Smith > John and People > Ellis > John with Find People For Tagging, and when I typed in "John" for a face, it arbitrarily picked the first one.

[johnrellis]

However, if I display that picture all by itself (e.g. F11) then I get a chance to tell PSE8 to ignore this person.

Hmm, in my Full Screen mode (F11), I never see any face-recognition options.