# Facial Recognition



## tspear

Operating System: Windows 10
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info): Lr Classic CC 7.0.2

I have been using facial recognition in Lr since it was introduced. This is a critical part of my flow for family/friends events and for send out images to family/friends. It is rather annoying and tedious to do though.

I have recently been quasi forced into using Google hangouts and Facebook tagging. OMG the facial tagging in these two platforms is light years ahead of Lr. Does anyone know of any standalone facial tagging tools which I can export back as keywords to facial regions using sidecar files?

Tim


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## mcasan

I have yet to get that feature to work reliably on brown bears, lions, or even birds.


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## Linwood Ferguson

I've never heard of anyone doing it, but taking a quick look...

The XMP file has a pretty simply reverse engineered format for face regions.  It seems to just contain spacing and the keywords.  Spacing appears to be fractions of the frame.

So if you could somehow export from Google or Facebook the information, transform it into this format, you could put it in an XMP and import.  I think LR would create the keywords and regions.

But LR also builds an index of face recognition data.  I doubt it would update that from the regions in the XMP.  I'm not sure.  Moreover, if it did I think you would need to very precisely build the region to its expectation (which are not documented and unlikely to match the region size and shape of the other two.  Now maybe none of that matters if you are not ever going to use LR itself for indexing.

One complication is that the regions in LR are pre-crop, so you can't crop and push up to google and pull it from there without a lot of care to map the region back to where it was.

Another is whether not matching their expectations for regions will cause something bad to happen when it interacts with LR's face recognition stuff.  I think when you import an image with face regions, it gets excluded from further face recognition, but that doesn't mean it gets excluded from all processing such as its indexing of face shape data.

It sure would be nice to have an alternative.  I just stopped using the current one, as it was really not very good.


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## Roelof Moorlag

Ferguson said:


> So if you could somehow export from Google or Facebook the information, transform it into this format, you could put it in an XMP and import.


 Is this what Jeffrey Friedl did with this Picasa plugin? Jeffrey's “Picasa Face-Recognition Import” Lightroom Plugin


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## tspear

@Ferguson 

If I find a better tool for face recognition, that I can use to tag the images, I am not going to continue or use the facial recognition database in Lr. I would just want the data associated with the images for search capabilities.

@Roelof Moorlag 

Yes. That is how it works. However, Picasa was ended years ago.

Tim


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## Linwood Ferguson

@Roelof Moorlag I had not seen that program, that's very interesting how JF worked that out.  

I also remembered this company: Excire Search - Find your Lightroom Images fast and intuitive

They have a facial component.  I have no idea if they are any good, or if this component works, and how it would integrate.  There was a flurry of discussion with them a while back, then I have not heard of them in a year or two, but might be worth a look if you haven't.


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## tspear

Ferguson said:


> @Roelof Moorlag I had not seen that program, that's very interesting how JF worked that out.
> 
> I also remembered this company: Excire Search - Find your Lightroom Images fast and intuitive
> 
> They have a facial component.  I have no idea if they are any good, or if this component works, and how it would integrate.  There was a flurry of discussion with them a while back, then I have not heard of them in a year or two, but might be worth a look if you haven't.



Excire tags the faces, and some attributes. e.g. Smiling, angry... It does NOT associate the face with a name. Further, it really only works if the face is straight on to the camera. 
When I talked to them at some point last year they had facial recognition on the road map. They just could not say when a release was targeted or desired; or if this was one, two or ten down the priority list.

Tim


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## Roelof Moorlag

tspear said:


> Yes. That is how it works. However, Picasa was ended years ago.





Ferguson said:


> I had not seen that program, that's very interesting how JF worked that out



Indeed, that was my point. If JF have found a way to do it with Picasa, someone else (or he) could do it again with Google and/or Facebook.


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## tspear

From what I have explored, neither Google or FaceBook expose the metadata from facial recognition. 
Interestingly, I did find a beta product from Microsoft that does that is a couple of years old.

Tim


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## solexcire

tspear said:


> Excire tags the faces, and some attributes. e.g. Smiling, angry... It does NOT associate the face with a name. Further, it really only works if the face is straight on to the camera.
> When I talked to them at some point last year they had facial recognition on the road map. They just could not say when a release was targeted or desired; or if this was one, two or ten down the priority list.
> 
> Tim


It is on top of our list today!
Sol


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## PhilBurton

tspear said:


> Excire tags the faces, and some attributes. e.g. Smiling, angry... It does NOT associate the face with a name. Further, it really only works if the face is straight on to the camera.
> When I talked to them at some point last year they had facial recognition on the road map. They just could not say when a release was targeted or desired; or if this was one, two or ten down the priority list.
> 
> Tim



Tim,

I should have ask you this question back in February, but ...

Are you using Excire for overall keywording?  If so, how well does it work for you?  How much do you need to change or delete Excire keywords?  How much do you need to do manual keywording?

Phil Burton


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## tspear

PhilBurton said:


> Tim,
> 
> I should have ask you this question back in February, but ...
> 
> Are you using Excire for overall keywording?  If so, how well does it work for you?  How much do you need to change or delete Excire keywords?  How much do you need to do manual keywording?
> 
> Phil Burton



I am not using it. Back then I was only interested in facial tagging. My meta-data is mostly comprised of event, local, season, and who is in the image.
Based on a some recent questions and images searches, I may be interested in expanding my meta-data. But for now, I have not. I also have been focused on other projects, such as finding a new CTO/CIO position.

Tim


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## Roelof Moorlag

a few days ago this artikel about Excire was posted on photofocus, maybe interesting?
Intelligent search in Lightroom Classic with Excire Search | Photofocus


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## PhilBurton

Roelof Moorlag said:


> a few days ago this artikel about Excire was posted on photofocus, maybe interesting?
> Intelligent search in Lightroom Classic with Excire Search | Photofocus


Roelof,

Thank  you for this article.  It was very interesting, even though it left out some detailed explanations.  I will definitely do a trial soon.

Phil Burton


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## solexcire

PhilBurton said:


> Tim,
> 
> I should have ask you this question back in February, but ...
> 
> Are you using Excire for overall keywording?  If so, how well does it work for you?  How much do you need to change or delete Excire keywords?  How much do you need to do manual keywording?
> 
> Phil Burton


Too Lazy to Manually Add Keywords? There's a Solution for That - Excire


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## solexcire

PhilBurton said:


> Roelof,
> 
> Thank  you for this article.  It was very interesting, even though it left out some detailed explanations.  I will definitely do a trial soon.
> 
> Phil Burton


Phil

I would be pleased to answer all your questions and you might find a lot of answers in our forum as well.
Excire Forum - English Community
Best 
Sol


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## solexcire

solexcire said:


> Phil
> 
> I would be pleased to answer all your questions and you might find a lot of answers in our forum as well.
> Excire Forum - English Community
> Best
> Sol





tspear said:


> I am not using it. Back then I was only interested in facial tagging. My meta-data is mostly comprised of event, local, season, and who is in the image.
> Based on a some recent questions and images searches, I may be interested in expanding my meta-data. But for now, I have not. I also have been focused on other projects, such as finding a new CTO/CIO position.
> 
> Tim


This is a new article from Andrew Darlow:

Excire Search: A Groundbreaking Search and Auto Keyword Tool for Lightroom – Hands-On Review : The Imaging Buffet


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## PhilBurton

solexcire said:


> Phil
> 
> I would be pleased to answer all your questions and you might find a lot of answers in our forum as well.
> Excire Forum - English Community
> Best
> Sol


Sol,

Thank you.

I am starting to use a controlled vocabulary from www.controlledvocabulary.com.  I need to see how well Excire integrates with the CVKC (or not).  It's very important that Excire does not use its own keywords if the keywords are available in CVKC, particularly after I've added keywords from an Excire run into CKVC.  I just have to download the trial and try out the different use cases.

Phil Burton


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## PhilBurton

PhilBurton said:


> Sol,
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> I am starting to use a controlled vocabulary from www.controlledvocabulary.com.  I need to see how well Excire integrates with the CVKC (or not).  It's very important that Excire does not use its own keywords if the keywords are available in CVKC, particularly after I've added keywords from an Excire run into CKVC.  I just have to download the trial and try out the different use cases.
> 
> Phil Burton


Sol,

I was hoping that you would reply to my post, quoted.  After i did some searching on the Excrire website, there are concerns that Excire maintains its own keyword list in Lightroom, separate from the keyword tree structure created by the user.

Phil Burton


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## solexcire

Phil

Sorry, but because of the Photokina Show and a 10 days family trip to NYC, I did not visit the blog. 
We create our own keyword hierarchy for our keywords (named Excire) so the that there is no mixing with existing keywords.

I hope this helps you.

Sol


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## PhilBurton

I'm sorry to read that Excire keywords do not integrate with any other keyword hierarchies.  Consider adding this feature as a future enhancement that can really broaden the appeal of your product.  As is, I can't use Excire and won't even spend the time to evaluate it.

Phil Burton


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## solexcire

Hi Phil

There is a misunderstanding. Yes,  we do create an Excire hierarchy, which allows you to manage your images even if you do not transfer the tags in your Lightroom catalog. As you might know, the Excire Search version, differently to the Pro version,  does not allow a keyword transfer to the Lightroom catalog. If you work with the Ero version instead, you can transfer all the excire keywords to your Lightroom catalog and we will set up the hierarchy in addition to your own keywords. Further, if you change any of the Excire keywords, our system does recognize this and does not apply any changes to this customization. 

Best
Sol


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## PhilBurton

solexcire said:


> Hi Phil
> 
> There is a misunderstanding. Yes,  we do create an Excire hierarchy, which allows you to manage your images even if you do not transfer the tags in your Lightroom catalog. As you might know, the Excire Search version, differently to the Pro version,  does not allow a keyword transfer to the Lightroom catalog. If you work with the Ero version instead, you can transfer all the excire keywords to your Lightroom catalog and we will set up the hierarchy in addition to your own keywords. Further, if you change any of the Excire keywords, our system does recognize this and does not apply any changes to this customization.
> 
> Best
> Sol


Sol,

No I did not know, else I would not have had to ask.  

Phil Burton


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## tspear

@solexcire

Do you have a list of of the keywords your engine finds? And also what is the false positive rates?
And how does the keyword transfer work exactly? Your website mentions they are under their own hierarchy, but is kinda vague.

For another personal project, I found it would be neat to classify the image in some manner based on the general category of image. Is this a "group" shot with many people? Is this a "family" shot? Is it mostly background? ... I think you get the idea.; this would appeal I think to hobby photographers. Which may give you more reach. Do you think this would be possible with Excire?


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## solexcire

Hi Tim

most of your questions are answered on our website. Including this evaluation:

Excire Search - Evaluation of AI-based Image Search

Some of the things you want we already offer, but other things not (family and background share).

I would appreciate if you just test the trial version, its 30 days for free. 

Best
Sol


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## tspear

Operating System: Windows 10
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info): Lr Classic CC 7.0.2

I have been using facial recognition in Lr since it was introduced. This is a critical part of my flow for family/friends events and for send out images to family/friends. It is rather annoying and tedious to do though.

I have recently been quasi forced into using Google hangouts and Facebook tagging. OMG the facial tagging in these two platforms is light years ahead of Lr. Does anyone know of any standalone facial tagging tools which I can export back as keywords to facial regions using sidecar files?

Tim


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## Bez G.

In answer to, "Does anyone know of any standalone facial tagging tools which I can export back as keywords to facial regions using sidecar files? "
TagThatPhoto is a Windows-based app and writes face tags in MWG-XMP and MSRI-XMP formats.  It is relatively new and I have been using for 3 months on about 20,000 images.  The accuracy is very good; I don't use Facebook or any of the cloud services so can't compare.   Hope that helps.


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## tspear

@Bez G. 

Are you saving the meta-data to Lr? Or where?
And how does it compare to the Lr Facial Recognition?

Lastly, welcome to the Lightroom Forums.


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## PhilBurton

solexcire said:


> Too Lazy to Manually Add Keywords? There's a Solution for That - Excire


Just a caution about Excire in general.  It generates keywords that are independent of your keyword list.  For me that is a significant issue.  I think the only way that I could use Excire is if they published their keyword hierarchy, so that we could incorporate it into Lightroom along with extensions for our particular interests.  Sol?

For facial recognition, Excire would have to accept our choice of names for people's faces.  The benefit of Excire here is that it _probably _has a more advanced AI-based feature recognition system.

_Phil_


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## PhilBurton

tspear said:


> @Bez G.
> 
> Are you saving the meta-data to Lr? Or where?
> And how does it compare to the Lr Facial Recognition?
> 
> Lastly, welcome to the Lightroom Forums.


Both good questions.  Ideally someone would have a facial recognition plug-in, but that might be hard to write for the typical plug-in author.


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