Photoshop Elements 2020 Strips People Tags from Edited Images

It's a feature, not a bug.  😉

This annoying bug is still present in PSE 2026.

It seems to be much worse than this. I "upgraded" from PSE14 to PSE20 and have now found that large swathes of People Tags were not copied over to the new database. I have 24'000 images plus all the edits, so this is an utter disater, Am I the only person to whom this has happened? Is Adobe aware of this mess?

The only possible solution would seem to be to throw out PSE20 and to revert to PSE14 and import the missing images taken over the last three months.

Adobe has added and improved features to the Organizer in recent versions.  Elements 2020 has just added face recognition for videos.  It actually does a pretty good job of finding faces to tag in videos.  If you click on a face in the People room, it will take you to a specific frame of the video where the face is found.  Smart tags and other search features have also been added recently.  I know it doesn't interest you, but face recognition performance has improved greatly since it was first introduced.

I agree with you that the Organizer is the best media library software; and you probably have one of the largest catalogs I've ever heard of.  (I have been using the Organizer seriously since version 3 and have ~20K media files less than you.)

Well, I have now confirmed my suspicion.  After a photo with People tags is edited and a copy of that photo is saved in a version set, yes, no People tags are added to that new file.  However, if face recognition is turned on, the new photo file is analyzed for face recognition, so that People tags can be added by those who chose to use the AI features of the program.  The new photo analysis will take into account any people who have been added or removed, and will include only those who are in the newly edited photo.

More importantly, if you do a search/filter for a tag that is buried under the untagged top image in a version set, the version set will expand and reveal the image with the tag right next to the untagged image. 

If this is a big deal to you, I suggest you use keyword tags to name people in your images, instead of the specialized system People tags which are tied to face recognition.   The keyword tags will be carried over to the edited file in a version set.  (I have been using keyword tags to identify locations instead of the system Places tags.  This has avoided all the problems that have been created by the change in map services.)

So, would it be a bug if I edit a file with several tagged people in it, crop out one of the people, save the file in a version set, and the edited file still has a tag for the person who is not in the photo?  What do you think Adobe should do in that situation?  Recognize whose face is no longer in the photo and delete the tag?  How about an edited file with a face added to a group photo from a different tagged photo?  Should the added person's tag be automatically included in the version set?

I haven't tested this yet, but I suspect that in your situation the version set image goes through a new face recognition analysis as a newly imported photo does, and the opportunity to add the tag through face recognition will be found.  If this is not the case, then I would certainly support a request to add that as a feature. 

Yes, I am using the normal keyword hierarchy. We all have different requirements to manage our assets. I am very picky to tag persons with any tag that can help me retrieve them by name, first name, married name, nickname or even family branches. I also manage family history and genealogy. I have learned to beware of face recognition... even by older people! I consider that face recognition may be useful when the job is to tag a relatively big catalog, and that is not my case, I have kept and enhanced my own hierachies from the first versions (PSE2). I don't consider than using both face recognition and normal keywords is necessarily redundant. If you manage seriously those standard keywords for the minority of people you really care about, that makes sense.

"This isn't related to face recognition (which I don't use). I'm simply applying tags (by dragging) to images. It's definitely a bug - there's no reason why editing should strip people tags".

I can see why that the management of face recognition is at the root of the issue. Even if you don't use it, it requires additional management of dedicated stacks and additional resources compared to the management of standard stacks/version sets. That stack management may contradict the standard one or at least require much more work to get that property inherited in a version set. So, I don't see it as a bug, only as a 'feature'; maybe it's 'by poor design', maybe it's on account of a logical impossibility.

However, what I don't understand is why you don't use the old custom hierarchy of persons, like in the old versions before PSE11. I am perfectly happy and I can have full flexibility in managing my people tags (I manage people, not faces) and their hierarchies. No issues at all with version sets and stacks.

Since PSE14 you did not get any answer by Adobe, except perhaps to go to Lightroom... Expecting a change in PSE2020 seems irreealistic.

I'm guessing that the reason a People tag is not applied to a version set copy is that you may have cut the person out of the picture while editing it.  Or cropping the photo may move the location of the face in the image.  So, the face recognition will not be accurately located.  Editing the photo does not change the Event or the Place.  So, it's probably a feature not a bug.