Pros and Cons of Tagging a Photo and Marking a Face

[the biker]

I'm using Element 2022 Organizer to identify people in various photos. It appears that I can either mark faces in each photo with names (either manually or using auto-recognize). Or I can simply assign a people tag to the photo. Both seem to do the job of allowing me to find photos containing a specific person or group. However, I'm not sure of the pros and cons of using eith method. If I use the "face marking" only to tag people in a photo, will this improve or degarde the auto-recognize feature? Many faces are not fully visible or just the back of a head. When I just tag the full photo with a name, do I lose anything. Thanks for any guidance.

[the biker]

Just a clarification on my question. I know ther are "Keyword Tags" and "People Tags". Both could be used to organize people. Here are my questions on their usage:

• When should I use Keyword Tags and when should I use People Tags? (this applies mostly for people)
• Is there any advantage or disadvantage to doing a "Face Marking" (where you mark a face and give it a name). Or should I just let the auto-recognize feature do this?
• If the face is not clearly visible, should I just "Add a Person" to the full photo or add the person as a Keyword Tag?
• I know with "People Tags" I can see a stack of their faces. But seems to be the only advantage. I can filter on a name if it's a keyword tag or a people tag.
• I'm concerned that if I try adding many faces (or backs of heads) to a person's People Tag, then any future auto-recognize will be affected.

Thanks again for any guidance on using "Tags".

[Greg_S. · Accepted solution]

There is a lot to unpack in your questions and your raise some interesting issues.  But here is my take on face tagging. 

• Let auto tagging perform its work first.  The recognition has become better each year.  And while in the earlier versions, it was my belief that I could perform the task manually and more accurately than the program, I no longer think that is true.
• Yes, you can apply either Keyword tags or People tags to faces (or people in photos where the face is not recognized).  However, I recommend choosing one type, and unless you have a good reason to choose Keyword tags, I would suggest using People tags.  Having both can only cause confusion.  For example, if you tag some photos of Person X with a keyword tag, and some with a People tag, it is problematic if you want to find all photos of Person X.  If you filter by both the keyword and the People tag, you will end up with no photos because the search will be looking for photos that contain BOTH keyword and People tags for X.
• If you add a tag using the Mark Face tool, I think the marked face will show up in the People stack.  I'm not sure about that.  However, if you simply tag a photo by drag and dropping a People tag on the image e,g, where there is no face visible, then only a generic icon will show up in the People stack.  Based on your questions, it sounds to me like this would not be a problem for you, since it has no effect on filtering your catalog for that person.
• I have no idea whether using the Mark Face tool will degrade face recognition if used upon the back of a head etc.  In the grand scheme of things, I don't think it will have a material affect.  (But it's an interesting question.)
• I doubt whether simply adding a People tag to an image via drag and drop will degrade the auto-analyis.

Let me know if I have missed anything from your questions.

[the biker]

Thanks Greg for a detailed response. I think you covered all of my questions.

• You are correct that in version 2022, the face recognition feature is only automatic and can not be started manually - unless you do a full reset. It would be nice to be able to manually re-trigger the face recognition on a sub set of photos.
• I fully agree that you should not use both keyword tags and people tags, which would cause confusion.
• My gut feeling is that you should only use the Face Mark tool when the face is visible. This is mostly on the assumption that future face analysis may get confused when trying to pick which face stack it belongs to. I would then use the "Add Person" (or drag photo to person tag) to tag photos with people that don't have a clear face showing. This is probably faster than using the Face Mark tool. The only disadvantage is their face does not show in the people stacks.

It's been interesting exploring the use of the Organizer in general. There are many good tools available to help organize your photos. I have seen lots of information describing how to use the tools e.g., Albums, Keywords, People, Events, etc. But very little guidance on best practices for using the tools. I know that everyone has a different work flow which can dictate their use of the tools. I wish there was more guidance information in addition to the how to use info.

Thanks for your help.

[MichelBParis]

It's been interesting exploring the use of the Organizer in general. There are many good tools available to help organize your photos. I have seen lots of information describing how to use the tools e.g., Albums, Keywords, People, Events, etc. But very little guidance on best practices for using the tools. I know that everyone has a different work flow which can dictate their use of the tools. I wish there was more guidance information in addition to the how to use info.

By @the biker

Best practices?

There are a number of reasons specific both of the nature of this forum and of the Organizer why 'best practices' are unfortunately dispersed and drowned in the flood of  'How to' and 'SOS' questions.

This forum (and forums in general):

- People come here because they have a problem. Most don't even try to browse the available content to find known answers and solutions, and only rare curious users understand that they can learn a lot by browsing the forum. Fortunately, there are a few volunteers who believe they can learn a lot by teaching and helping and also intelligent users asking very pertinent questions.

- The forum search is what it is, underestimated but still not adequate. The environment of PSE and photoediting and organizing is changing very rapidly and good answers are soon becoming obsolete.

- Many users think they are in a social media site and waste a lot of energy outside of the purpose of the forum. The simple idea of  'best practices' is taken as an attack to their freedom. You'll always find users to defend any horrible practice, especially for the safety of their data.

- There is a growing part of the users who think that you don't have to learn and practice. If you can't immediately achieve an advanced effect, that's the fault of the software, of its bad user interface, of its lack of  'AI'. Their question is simple: 'where is the button to do that action?' The 'How to' answer generaly requires an explanation, and (I agree with you) a comment and (personal judgment) of the best practice.

Specificity of the organizer:

-  Organizing media files depends on the user, and everybody has its own preferences. In this forum, I take the risk to give my advice, but at home, I am more prudent to discuss my dear wife's organization...

- Organizing may use either browsers or catalogs using databases. The organizer uses catalogs (like Lightroom) and can also manage folders like Bridge. The general agreement is to choose the best system for you and not to try to manage both systems at the same time.

- When starting to use the organizer, people immediately understand what they can expect for searches, for grouping files together. They nearly always ignore the necessity for safety (backups) and longlasting aptitude of their libraries and catalogs (you'll migrate to other computers or disks some day).

- The organizer is twenty years old. It combines a lot of strong conventional ways to manage your files with new 'AI' automatic features. You don't have to choose between the two ways, you can use them together as you have seen from Greg's advice.

The issue with 'best practices' is that they don't help much your creativity, they insure against data loss, lost time in wrong workflows, inability to communicate with others etc. They are seen rather as constraints rather than rewards. Just think about the number of posts requesting a preference setting to save by overwiting the original WITHOUT warning message!

[the biker]

Thanks MichelBParis for your thoughtful response. I appreciate it and agree with your comments. While, I may be new to Elements and this forum, I do try to seach the forums and help/user guides before posting questions. In this particular case, I was struggling with tags and the best way to apply them, particularly as it applied to people. While, I could see and understand the various methods for applying tags, I was missing the reason for doing it one way or the other. I'm sure various methods work better for different people and situations. Since I was new, I was seeking out the advice of others. I think I have found that, so thanks to you and Greg.