dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

Like many during these challenging times, I have been scanning in old photos and organizing others. Among the steps I have been going through is to use Lightroom's Face Recognition to tag people. I have done thousands of people.

Now I would like to use these tags easily, but cannot figure out how. I am probably missing something obvious, so I will not be surprised, if one of you tells me "just click on the bring photos of people tag." Right now I can bring up images showing the face as it appears in all of those images by clicking on "Named People" but I can't bring up just those images in grid view without applying a new filter and typing in the name as it appears in the keyword list. I have many subjects with difficult to spell names. Having to type them in when they already exist in a list is a pain. It just seems that once I have gone to "Named People" and selected one of them, I should be able to see just those images in grid view.

For instance, I have over 60,000 images going back to the mid 60's. My wife was born in 1960. I just want to see her images for the last 60 years (though obviously she can't be 60 YO and if anyone says I said she was, ... well...) I can see her face as it might be in each of those photos, but I need to see just those photos in grid view or the ribbon. Yeah, for her I will type her name in a filter, but if I am trying to find Marijke, Yerminian, Doucoure or Shayegan (or is it Shayagan?) I have to type that name into a filter even though it is sitting right there in the "Named People" view.

Is there some way to automatically generate a filtered view without having to go to grid view, open a filter and type in the name? Is there some people filter function with a dropdown list for this somewhere hidden (from me at least)?

Searches on Google and at Adobe keep taking me to explanations of how to tag people but there is precious little about how to make these tags easily useful.

Thanks

f8lee Loc: New Mexico

What I do is create a "smart collection" with the rule where metadata contains "Frank Jones" or whatever name I am looking to use as a filter. Of course, you can set the filter to use multiple names in either an "AND" or an "OR" configuration, so as to include all photos with Frank and also photos with Sally, or using the OR methid to include all photos that have Frank or have Sally.

Hope that helps.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

Thanks,

That just seems a lot of work for what should be available in a dropdown. It sounds like I am still typing in the name just like I would in a filter. Maybe I am misunderstanding what you mean. Can you have a dropdown in a collection that calls up all keywords related to people? Would I need to create a collection for each person? Isn't that the purpose of what I was doing when I was identifying them through facial recognition?

bleirer

I haven't used faces much. One 'obvious' thing that stumped me for a while is that the photos are stacked with the top face, similar to stacking all the shots of a panorama. I think you click the count to view the underlying. Within the view>people menu.

I assume you read this one. Lightroom queen might also be worth asking or searching.
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/face-recognition.html#Indexfaces

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

Thanks for the article. It does not address how to make that info useful. (But she is still the queen for a reason) After you click on a person and then one of the detected face images, all you get is the underlying photo in sequence with all other photos, not just the ones with that person. It seems, if Adobe went to all the trouble to make this function, it should easily and automatically generate a filter based on that person.

f8lee Loc: New Mexico

Well, presumably, since the list of "faces" is essentially infinite, there is no way to have a drop down. I mean, you might be tracking only 5 people, but the next user might have 500 - and a drop down listing of that size - even if it were possible - is ridiculous.

The facial recognition feature simply adds another metadata keyword to the image in question, in this case, the name you assign to that face. If you find it too bothersome to create a smart collection then I don't know what to tell you.

In related news, I also use a 3rd party program called Excire - https://us.excire.com/ - this software automatically applies metadata of all types, and when there are people in a photo it adds things like "smiling", "eyeglasses" and a plethora of other tags. So what that means if you wanted to create a smart collection of all the photos in your library that include "Timmy" and "smiling" you can even further winnow down the list.

bleirer

Interesting problem. I don't know. That article I linked was from Adobe. A quick search of Lightroom queen didn't seem to find anything. But there is a forum there where you can ask a question. I don't know if membership is required.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

The point is, if Adobe added this function why did they not make it functional? It pulls up the cut outs of the individuals. It is not a huge leap to add an automatic filter option. It would seem to be an easy (and rather obvious) addition. It would certainly improve workflow for organizing large catalogues. And Lightroom has always been about organization.

f8lee Loc: New Mexico

The point is, it is functional - I use it often. After scanning a few thousand family snapshots from decades past, I was able to create smart collections where my cousins or kids or whomever were in the photos in the collection, and then use the collection to create photo books.

That you do not understand the relatively simple boolean logic of filtering a smart collection is on you - it really is not that hard. And what you think a programmer could do to somehow "make it automatic 'cause I really want that" is, at this stage, unrealistic. Hell, why not be thankful the face recognition thing exists at all?

Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

If I understand you correctly, You would like to type in the persons name and the program identifies all instances.
Here's what works for me.

Click on the main folder. For me that's over 40,000 images. Then click the People view icon. This might take awhile. You should see a header for "Unnamed People", if there are images with names a "Named People" will also be shown.

Select a face and type in a name > enter. That image should go to the "Named People" area with a number indicating how many images it found.

Double click on that image. You should now see a "Confirmed" area with a number on the right & a "Similar" area also with a number indicating how many images it found. In my case that's 17,285. All the images in the Similar area should have a name attached with a question mark.

If you click on an image in the similar area a check mark should appear, clicking on the check mark will move the image from Similar to Confirmed.

If you Click on the first image in the Similar area, scroll down to an unfamiliar image, Shift + left click (PC) on the image right before the unfamiliar face and highlight the images. Mouse over an image and click on the check mark. This will move all the highlight images to the confirmed area. This also will search the entire database and find other similar faces. The more confirmed faces the better.

You'll find that you have to do this several times to find all the faces. I went through my database and found maybe 90% in 20 minutes from 20 years old to 70.

Hope this is what you were looking for.

Steve

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

I understand the Boolean logic (Boolean is spelled with a capital "B" as it comes from the work of an actual human (George Boole). I question why I should need to take several extra steps to pull up that filter when ALL the parameters are already held in memory. It is a short code set to provide an immediate link to a filter based on what is already done.

It is OK, you probably just missed the term "Workflow issue" that is at the very start of this post.

Me, I always try to read the OP and the title of a post before replying.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

NO!!!!!

It is a workflow issue. That is why the post is labeled "Workflow Issue." I want to have an already embedded link in the people function that realizes "Oh!!!! You clicked on this person!!! You must want to see all the photos with this person! Just click here Gee Golly!!!"

It is so blindingly obvious a function that I am blinded by its absence.

Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

Sorry. Just trying to help