Camera Raw 18.7: Select People fails because ML model is not loaded / People model not provisioned

Camera Raw 18.7: Select People fails because ML model is not loaded / People model not provisioned

I'm having a persistent problem with Select People in Adobe Camera Raw 18.7.

System

• Adobe Camera Raw 18.7 (18.7x2743)

• Photoshop 27.10.0

• Windows 11

• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop GPU

The symptom is that Masking > People reports:

“Unable to select people in this photo.”

This occurs consistently with photographs containing clearly visible people. Select Subject, however, now works correctly.

I originally also had problems with Adobe AI models failing to download. Interestingly, connecting through a VPN (UK connection routed via the Netherlands) allowed the Select Subject models to download and Select Subject then started working.

I have since completely rebuilt the Camera Raw ModelZoo by renaming:

%APPDATA%\Adobe\CameraRaw\ModelZoo

and allowing Camera Raw to create a clean ModelZoo while connected through the VPN.

The fresh ModelZoo successfully downloaded the Select Subject components, including:

select_subject_classifier
select_subject_v5_on_device
refinement_bundle_on_device

Select Subject works after these downloads.

However, attempting Select People does not cause the People model to be downloaded.

My previous ModelZoo contained:

metacaf\background_people_v1\winml\people_1014_fp16.data

The model file is approximately 77.19 MB.

The completely fresh ModelZoo does not download or create background_people_v1 at all when Select People is used.

The Camera Raw logs show the following when People detection is attempted:

*** Warning: falling back to baseline get_ml_model_preinstall_root_paths: (skin) perhaps models not properly installed ***

select_skin::DoInference time (sec)=0.000

*** Error: ML model not loaded ***

The logs also show similar “perhaps models not properly installed” messages for automask, sky, depthmap and automaskstuff.

Camera Raw does successfully initiate downloads for some other missing models, for example:

cmd download task start: model="skin_retouch/winml/"

but there is no corresponding download request for background_people_v1.

As a further test, I copied the complete background_people_v1 package from my old ModelZoo into the newly created ModelZoo, including:

manifest.json
people_1014_fp16.data

This made no difference. Select People still failed and the log continued to report:

select_skin::DoInference time (sec)=0.000
*** Error: ML model not loaded ***

This suggests that simply having the People model files present is insufficient and that Camera Raw is failing to provision/register/load the model correctly.

The Camera Raw startup log does nevertheless report:

ML Model skin: version=234881976 (14.0.0.952)

so Camera Raw appears to know about the model/version even though it cannot load it for inference.

At this point I have tested:

• Multiple photographs containing obvious people

• Select Subject, which works

• VPN connection, which resolved the original Subject model download problem

• Complete clean rebuild of %APPDATA%\Adobe\CameraRaw\ModelZoo

• Regeneration of CloudDownload\Index.dat

• Manual restoration of the complete background_people_v1 model package

• Restarting Windows and Adobe applications

The behaviour remains the same.

It therefore looks as though Camera Raw 18.7 is failing to provision or register the model required by Select People rather than simply failing to recognise the people in the photograph.

Is this a known issue with Camera Raw 18.7 / the current People masking models? I can provide the Camera Raw logs if they would be useful.