Does Restoring an Elements backup preserve face information

[MIke5E05]

Hi.

I run Elements2020 and have done back-up and restore move 46000 item catalogue to a new machine). The process only took a couple of hours but the Face Analysis is now running at only about 3500 per day! So the entire process will run for a week or more.

Does back up and restore retain all the face information from the original catalogue?

Why is it performing a very lenghty face analysis process?

Can I alter the way a full backup is done in the future to avoid this again?

Many Thanks.

Mike

[Guest]

Moving thread to the Photoshop Elements forum from Photoshop

[Greg_S.]

When you do a full backup and restore of a catalog, all of the face recognition information is transferred from the old to the transferred catalog.  So, if face recognition had been completed on the backed up catalog, there would be no need for the computer to repeat the operation.  If you had not completed naming the faces, the same unnamed faces should appear in the restored catalog.

So having said that, it is not entirely clear to me how you have done a backup and restore move of the catalog. How much of the catalog had been face recognized before the backup?  Did you use the original catalog structure on the restore?  Did you use the same user account name on the new computer?

I'm just guessing here, but if anything changed in the folder structure of the media files, all of the .json files that contain the face recognition information may have to be edited and saved (by the program) again to show the new folder location.  I'm going to ping @MichelBParis who is our catalog database expert to see whether he has any insight on this.

As for the current pace of face recognition, 3500 per day is on the slow side.  But that will also depend on your hardware.  Also, if you start naming faces while recognition is still taking place, I believe it slows down the whole process because each recognized face will be measured against a previously named face to see whether it is the same person.  I believe this will result in new faces showing up in the Named People room.  These are signified by a blue triangle showing up by a named person's stack, and if you open the stack, you will be asked to confirm whether additional faces are of that person.  In the long run, this may speed up naming people - but maybe not.

In any event, I would leave the computer on 24-7 (and make sure it doesn't go to sleep) while face recognition is being conducted.

[MIke5E05]

Hi Greg.

Thanks for your reply, sorry not to respond to your help earlier as realise its been a while since you posted! 

To clarify:

I installed Elements2020 on a second machine to simply test the backup/restore process and whilst the catalogue only took a couple of hours it then did the face recognition process at about 3500/day - it eventually finished.

So my key question is(which I think you have confirmed):

All face recognition information is stored with a full or incremental back up so that if that if a restore (46000 pictures) (to previous location or a new laptop) is performed then the restored catalogue is fully as per the original - with all face recognition and naming data.  I was curious as to why is was taking so long to do the face recognition on the restored laptop and wondered if it was starting from scratch - but is seems to be complete.

Thanks.Mike

[Greg_S.]

Yes the Restore operation should give you a catalog in exactly the same state it was in when you backed it up.  But further activity may be required if the folder structure has changed from the original location.

[Greg_S.]

. . .  and a restore of a 46K media catalog in a couple of hours (with a fully face recognized catalog) doesn't sound right to me.  So please give us more detail about the stage of your catalog when you did the backup.  How many files had been analyzed according to the status bar at that point?