Facial Recognition Issues with 2021

[CharlesSBanks]

I appear to be having inttermittent issues with facial recognition in 2021 Adobe Elements.  There are three different senerios that I have seen.

1.  After opening Elements and importing new photos I see a message that the system is analyizing my faces (can't recall exact message in lower right corner).  After it is done I open a photo and have "Is this Joe Smith".  Everything works as it should.

2.  Same as number 1. until I open the photo.  Now I get "Add Name" even on photos that I know the system has reconized the face.

3.  After opening Elements I never see the message.  One of two things happen when I open a photo.  Either I get "Add Name" or I get a message that facial analysis has not been run.  If I select run it I keep going in circles; after waiting I try to add a name and the message comes back up.

In all 3 cases, before I open Elements I ensure that my system is not busy with other process.  I understand facial analysis is a background process so I always ensure nothing else is going on.  This has been going on since installing 2021 and I cannot find any pattern as to these three cases.  Hoping someone can shed some light on what could be going on.  When facial reconition works, it works great on most of my photos.  This is unlike other versions when I could not get it to work at all.

Thanks

[Greg_S.]

Charles, when you say you open a photo and add a name etc., I assume you are selecting a file in the grid and displaying it in full screen view.  If so, the program is behaving as intended.

In scenario 1, the program has recognized a face in the photo and has enough confidence that it belongs to a person you have previously named.  It will not add the name automatically.  You have to confirm that it is the person suggested.

In scenario 2, the face has been recognized, and even though you may have many named photos of that same person, the program does not have sufficient confidence to make a suggestion.  You are therefore offered the opportunity to type in the name.  However, once you type the first letter, a previously identified name/names should pop up which will then narrow down while you type more letters of the actual name.

Scenario 3 depends on how many new photos you have added to the catalog and how patient you are. 

IMO, you are not using the most efficient method to name people.  I usually use the UnNamed People room and wait for the stacks to appear so I can name multiple photos with one or two clicks.

[CharlesSBanks]

Hi Greg!

Thanks for the quick reply.  I was not sure how to phrase it but you do understand correctly.  Once you import one or more photos they show up on a grid.  Just like all photos in the organizer, the only way to work with faces is to double click and display full screen.  Senerio one works as I understand you need to confirm the name.  If you reccall, I had issues with version 2020 to work with facial reconiztion.  I tested version 2021 and, initially, facial reconizition seem to be working great, in fact in found and reconized faces in a video that I had.  After purchasing 2021 and working with several batches of new scanned photos I noticed that, at times senerio 2 or 3 would happen.  What I noticed was there were some photos of people who I have a lot of images of over the years.  In version 2019 a new photo of those people would average about 95% that it would be reconized.  What pushed me to post this was I had scanned a photo of my father standing at a podium.  After importing that photo, I had to add his name to the face since it did not reconize it.  Once I was done and returned to the main grid I discovered I already had the same photo in the orginizer.  I did notice that when I was in unamed people what you said about locating a previously name person narrowing my search down.  This does not seem to be the case on the grid.

I will say that in 2019 I never received a message that analysis had not be performed.  We are talking at most six photos and, at one time, 30 minutes of idel computer time.  As I said Greg, I know this is a background process and took all factors into conciderations before reporting this.

Greg, I am very sensistive to issues with facial reconization as this is extremely important for what I do.  Most photos that I scan have information about the photo.  What I normally do is scan up to six photos at a time.  I then name them appropriately and import them into the orginizer.  Once they are import I open each up and add information: Name; Date; Location and sometimes notes.  This saves me time in that I don't need to go back and locate these photos amongst the 700 plus already in orginizer.  It is much quicker if I am asked if the photo is a name that I have already identified.  What I really like, which worked great in 2019, is when I have a photo that has no information and I'm not sure who it is.  Several times I have done this and the system came up with a suggestion which correctly helped me identify an unknown photo.

What is IMO?  I do use the unNamed People at times, but because of the way I do things most stacks are of people who I just don't know.  For me, the most effcient way to identify photos is when I first bring them in, especially because of the additional information I wish to add.  If you recall, I am using the orginizer to catalog old photos of my ancestors.

I guess I am just prone to have weird issues with Adobe and will just have to deal.  Since this is an intermittent problem I was hoping to learn if there was anything that could interfer with facial reconiztion.  

Thanks

[Greg_S.]

I did notice that when I was in unamed people what you said about locating a previously name person narrowing my search down. This does not seem to be the case on the grid.

I just tested this out with a photo of me wearing a mask.  Not surprisingly, face recognition did not recognize me.  In fact, I had just imported this photo a day or two ago and because I had all media analysis turned off, face recognition had not yet been started.  I used the Mark Face tool and gave permission for analysis of the photo to proceed.  This took maybe 20 seconds.  After the analysis was completed, I was able to mark the face.  I moved the rectangular marquee over my face and clicked in the Add Name text box.  After typing the letter G in the box, several names beginning with G popped up in a list. I clicked on Greg, my full name was entered in the box and after clicking the green checkmark, the name was added to the photo.  This feature only works in full screen (single image) view of the grid.

I do use the unNamed People at times, but because of the way I do things most stacks are of people who I just don't know. For me, the most effcient way to identify photos is when I first bring them in, especially because of the additional information I wish to add. If you recall, I am using the orginizer to catalog old photos of my ancestors.

OK.  You have reminded me about your situation.  I now understand that you only work with a few files/scans at a time, and that you have the identity information available immediately and want to apply that information to the photos in the Organizer.  So, if that is the case, I have a couple of suggestions/comments/questions.

• If the information is readily available, and you only have less than a dozen photos to add at a time, do you really need to have the face recognized?  For your purposes, wouldn't it be sufficient to simply drag a People name tag (new or existing) from the tag panel to the photo(s) of that person that you have just scanned?  You can always find photos of that person by clicking on the name tag.  A stack of photos with that person in it will also be available in the Named People room.  Although the thumbnails of the faces will only be generic, the photo thumbnails will all be available by clicking on the Media option.

• Or do you really go into the People room to view thumbnails of the faces?  If so, since you are working with small quantities of photos at a time and presumably wish to complete the job in one sitting, just use the Mark Face tool for any faces that have not yet been recognized automatically.  In that case, clicking on the Mark Face tool will allow you to analyze the faces in the photo immediately and you can then add the names.  If there are any faces that you don't know but the Organizer thinks it does, you will see a suggested name instead of an Add Name text box.

IMO = In my opinion

IMHO = In my humble opinion

IMNSHO = In my not so humble opinion  😁

[CharlesSBanks]

I think we went from concerns of issues with facial reconition to how best to use the application.  If you recall, I became frustrated trying to convince you that facial reconition did not work in 2020.  This too stemed from how I was using the application.  In the end, once we got passed all that, we both agreeded that there appeared to be an issue with running Adobe on a Windows 10 Pro computer.  The fact was, it worked on your computer but not mine.  Even with the posts and multiple phone calls to Adobe Support they never sent out any patches or update which allowed it to work FOR ME.  Fortuneatly, I was able to get my money back for that update.

When 2021 came out I used it as a trial only and the first thing I did was test out facial reconition.  I was happy to see that it appeared to work and was really impressed when it found faces in a video I had.  Since it worked, I purchased the product.  After using it for a while I started noticing the issue that I posted about but initially didn't do anything about.  When I scanned a duplicate photo that I had already entered information on and it did not reconize the face I felt I had "proof" there was a problem.  When I wrote the post I made sure to be clear on the fact it was an intermittent problem and tried to explain in detail what I saw.

How I use the product came out of why I purchased Adobe Elements in the first place.  When I first started cataloging family photos I was on a Macbook Pro.  I would scan a photo of my great grandfather and iPhoto would ask who this was.  So, along with other information I entered Simon Meyers.  To my surprise, when I would later add additional photos iPhotos would ask me if this was Simon Meyers.  After entering over 300 photos one day Apple decided to change from iPhotos to just Photos.  They overhauled an application with an OS update without any warning and I lost all of my work.

This is when I started looking for applications that were independant of the OS and had facial reconition.  When I found Adobe Elements Organizer I was careful at first but it worked almost as well as iPhotos.  As I had hoped, when I found an update that caused problems I just didn't update the application.  To this date I now have 789 well documented photos of my family and have not lost any information.  The reason I do things the way I am is because that is the way I have been doing it for years.  I do not want to change the way I have been doing things just because an update does not perform the way a previous version did.  I appreciate your feedback and attention on this.

[CharlesSBanks]

Greg,

As a follow-up to all the communications I would like to let you know that yesturday and toda I have been working with a whole new set of photos then those that are simalar to what was added.  Even with different settings, backgrounds and hair styles I have hit about 98% accuracy with twenty photos.

I have the same applications open and am following the same procedures that I always have.  My point is it would be helpful to understand more of the mechanics of facial reconition then how I am using it.  Could you tell me, for example, what background service(s) need to be running in order for the system to reconize faces?  Could Antivirus Software interfer with this process?  Disk Issues?  I should note that I just cleared my tempoary folder which is something I do on a regular basis.

Thanks

Charles

[Greg_S.]

As far as I know, the only services that are active during face recognition are the Adobe Elements 20XX Organizer and Elements Autocreations 20XX processes.  I have never turned off antivirus software for FR to work.  Closing other processes couldn't hurt.  But I don't think it will help any/much.