Facial Recognition (!) and blank

Report · Aug 22, 2020

I have Windows 10 and just purchased PS Elements 2020. All importing went well and facial recognition took a while but finally the lower right showed all files had been analyzed. However, of the about 100 faces named, about 20 of them are showing a blank person icon for the profile photo and an exclamation point. Either one of these alone wouldn't cause concern (I know how to assign a profile photo and the exclamation mark simply means there are faces in there to be reviewed) but these particular faces will not bring up anything - media or faces - when clicked. Even if I click and leave it for an hour. Day after day, these same faces - some with only (12) photos and others with hundreds will not open for me to see the faces/media in the People tab.

Can anyone advise? Thank you!

~Aasha

Report · Aug 22, 2020

Have you owned a prior version of Elements and did you convert a prior catalog to 2020?

How have you been adding the names to the files? Have you done it from stacks found in the UnNamed People room? Or have you simply dragged the People name tags to photos in the grid (or vice versa)? Your answers may provide some clues as to why you are seeing the generic icons in your People stacks.

Report · Aug 23, 2020

Hi Greg,

This is a new Elements download, no prior catalog. While annoying that the top of the people stack has a generic icon, the real problem is that those particular stacks aren't opening when I try to click on them. The blue exclamation point is no issue as I know that just means new faces in that stack to review.
I just read that the reason there is a generic icon on the people stack is because I added at least one person in those photos with "add name" verson "add person". I've just troubleshooted that by finding one of these generic stacks with only 9 photos of the person, removing the "name" (not showing up as a smart tag or keyword tag so cannot be removed from the quick menu) and the going to each individual photo, scrolling over the face and adding the name that way. Once complete for every photo in that stack, the person icon under the people tab works as intended.

My problem now is for those people stacks with over 30,000 photos (my daughter for example, I have a lot of photos of her). How do I do a mass "remove name" for all of those photos of her and then a mass "add person" so her 30,000 photo stack works? There must be an easier way than doing each photo individually!

Report · Aug 24, 2020

It's not exactly clear to me what you are doing. Some screenshots would be helpful. I may be wrong but I think you may have a misconception about how FR works in Elements. For each face that has been analyzed, you need to confirm that the face belongs to a named person. The fact that you are seeing the blue exclamation points suggests to me that you are looking in the Named People tab. While it is possible to confirm suggested names in that tab, it is better to name people from the UnNamed People tab.

How many photos do you have in your catalog? The number appearing in the lower left of the status bar will give a good approximation. How many files do you have in the following folder: C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Elements Organizer\Catalogs\[YOUR CATALOG NAME]\FaceAnalysis\json\. If face recognition has been completed, the numbers should match.

Please give us a screenshot of the Named People and UnNamed People tabs. How many UnNamed People stacks do you have? The number will appear in the lower left corner of the status bar. How many small stacks do you have? Uncheck the box to Hide small stacks which appears at the top of the UnNamed People tab.

I shall await further response from you before giving some hopefully more productive suggestions.

Report · Jan 13, 2022

I have an issue that might well be related that of the topic starter. Please see screenshot below.

There are 4 names listed in the dropdown:

- Two are OK, those are the 'Aaron' and 'Aad' that I have purposely named and have a correct Profile Picture.

- The other two are faulty, the ones with the "head and torso" icon. When I was naming, I apparently made a typo with 'AAd'. The faulty 'Aaron' looks like its spelled the same as the correct 'Aaron' (maybe there is a space at the end though). There used to be some photos of Aaron and Aad in these faulty stacks, and I removed them to the correct stacks. However, the faulty names are still 'available', but not as a stack. I can't find a way to delete these, and of couse I am not going to reset all face recognition just because of this.

I checked Google, Adobe Support and this forum, but alas.

How can I remove the empty, faulty people names?

PS: the boy in the picture is actually neither Aaron or Aad, but that's besides the point 🙂

Report · Jan 14, 2022

@Hilco, the erroneous names should be found in the Tags panel under People Tags. Make sure that the erroneous names have not been applied to any photos (by checking the box next to the name). You can then right-click on the name and Delete it.

And it is possible to have duplicate names spelled exactly alike. Usually, there is a warning message when this happens, but it is easy to miss it.

Report · Jan 14, 2022

Thank you Greg. That solved it for me and was actually super easy 🙂