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Great to see that LR CC writes face data to XMP-mwg-rs tags (jay!), according to Metadata Working Group (i.e. Adobe, Microsoft, Sony, Nokia, and others) extension of XMP. See Image Region Metadata, Section 5.9 in the Metadata Working Group Spec.
---- XMP-mwg-rs
RegionAppliedToDimensionsW : 1768
RegionAppliedToDimensionsH : 2656
RegionAppliedToDimensionsUnit : pixel
RegionRotation : -1.43512
RegionName : Benoit Gindele
RegionType : Face
RegionAreaH : 0.04897
RegionAreaW : 0.03262
RegionAreaX : 0.59858
RegionAreaY : 0.72477
RegionRotation : -1.52229
However, LR does NOT read and process existing XMP-mwg-rs written by other software, e.g. Picasa (Nooooooo!).
Picasa in turn reads and shows XMP-mwg-rs tags created by LR CC flawlessly.
With large collections this is obviously a severe limitation for moving to LR, as well as for general interoperability. Adobe went half the way.
Thousands and thousands of clicks to go, again...
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Upload to Dropbox or similar a sample pic from Picasa that shows the problem and post the link here. That will let us identify the specific issue and file a bug report/feature request.
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This image has a named face image region applied through Picasa:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/13499200/IMG_0903.JPG
Exiftool output:
---- XMP-mwg-rs
RegionAppliedToDimensionsW : 3264
RegionAppliedToDimensionsH : 2448
RegionAppliedToDimensionsUnit : pixel
RegionName : Nicoletta S.
RegionType : Face
RegionAreaX : 0.778799
RegionAreaY : 0.18076
RegionAreaW : 0.0649509
RegionAreaH : 0.10335
RegionAreaUnit : normalized
When importing the file, LR CC does not seem to read and process the XMP-mwg-rs tags.
Neither does the name show up in the People list, nor does it show the region area and the associated name in the corresponding interface.
As mentioned in opening post, going the other way works: Images with named regions added through LR CC are recognized by Picasa, added to its list of people and can be processed through its face region overlay interface, i.e. renamed, moved, deleted etc.
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When I import that sample pic, LR imports the face region and the name applied to that region ("Nicoletta Stanescu"), and it creates a keyword "Nicoletta Stanescu", but it doesn't apply that keyword to the photo:
It doesn't apply the keyword to the photo because it wasn't specified in the photo's XMP:Subject or IPTC:Keywords fields.
The core issue is that LR represents named faces using both MWG regions and keywords, whereas Picasa apparently just uses MWG regions. When LR imports a Picasa photo, it correctly imports the region and the name attached to the region. But because Picasa didn't also record a keyword for that person, LR didn't attach any keyword to the photo on import. I don't see anything in the MWG Guidance that prefers the behavior of one program over the other in this situation.
To work around this incompatibility, you could use Exiftool to copy values in the Region Name field into the XMP:Subject field before you import the photos into LR.
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Ah ok, thanks very much for testing, johnrellis, I think now I understand what's going on here.
So mwg regions are recognized when importing.
However, they are not recognized as such in images which are already in the library.
See, this is what I got:
I had to go and tell Lightroom to read the metadata again - then it showed me the imbedded mwg region and it's name.
The good news is you can go "Metadata > Read metadata from file" on a single image and LR will eventually show it's embedded regions. (Even then I had to go to the next image and back to have the interface actually update.)
The bad news is you cannot use the "Synchronize folder..." dialog in the Navigator. It will not detect existing face regions in images that were already imported.
Unless there is another way that means in the end you have to go through each image and click "Metadata > Read metadata from file".
I'm praying there is another way...
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you cannot use the "Synchronize folder..." dialog in the Navigator. It will not detect existing face regions in images that were already imported
Did you select the option Scan For metadata Updates in the Synchronize Folder window?
If that doesn't work (it should), you can use the Library Filter bar to identify all files whose metadata on disk is newer than what's in the catalog. In the Metadata browser, use the Metadata Status column. Then select all the displayed files and do Metadata > Read Metadata From File. (You can make filter preset if you do that a lot.)
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Did you select the option Scan For metadata Updates in the Synchronize Folder window?
Yes, confirmed, with "Scan for metadata updates" selected LR doesn't see the XMP-mwg-rs info. (Perhaps it's just checking for a newer file date?)
Your idea basically works, thank you for the tip. I can select multiple files and go "Read metadata from file" for all of them. I would have to try that for the whole library - a bit scared right now, for a single folder that's already taking some time.
Even when LR performs its own face recognition on an image it won't look if there's already an XMP-mwg-rs tag. And so it will suggest faces for which regions are already defined and named.
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In another thread, tfau wrote:
found a setting i Picasa "Store Name Tags in Photo" New facetags made in Picasa now is visible i LR.
That's a great tip for other Picasa users!
But all my old tags who not only are from before I activated this setting, but also generated i WLPG,but visible in Picasa, are still not visible in LR. If there had been a way to make Picasa store facetags on all my pictures in the JPG file, then that would be the way to do it, I hope. I have 15.000 pictures, many of them with facetags.
To handle your old pictures, a quick Google search brings up in its first result page how to write named face regions for your old pics.
But beware that when you import these pics into Lightroom, you'll get the results that are discussed above in this thread. You'll be able to see the named face regions, but LR won't assign person keywords to the photos.
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Building on all of this - I found http://www.mysysadmintips.com/windows/home-and-media/424-copy-windows-photo-gallery-face-tags-to-goo... to get Window Photo Gallery into Picassa, which would then allow LR to read the face tags
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johnrellis wrote:
...
The core issue is that LR represents named faces using both MWG regions and keywords, whereas Picasa apparently just uses MWG regions. When LR imports a Picasa photo, it correctly imports the region and the name attached to the region. But because Picasa didn't also record a keyword for that person, LR didn't attach any keyword to the photo on import. I don't see anything in the MWG Guidance that prefers the behavior of one program over the other in this situation.
If Picasa didn't record a keyword for that person, then why does Lr create a keyword for that person? As shown in the screenshot above, Lr created a Person Keyword for Nicoletta Stanescu, but didn't associate the keyword to the photo from which it got the metadata for the keyword. To be consistent with your explanation, it seems like Lr should not create a keyword at all. However I would prefer it create the keyword AND associate it to the photo
IMO, Lr should either not create a keyword at all, or ... create the keyword AND associate it with the photo. Seems like they went halfway which is causing this confusion.
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What you and the others have requested -- for LR to be able to read Picasa's face metadata -- is an entirely reasonable feature request. You might wish to add your me-too vote and detailed opinion to this existing feature request in the official Adobe feedback forum: Lightroom feature request - Import Picasa face recognition data | Photoshop Family Customer Communit...
It would be straightforward to implement: LR is already creating the keyword for an imported face name, and it would be simple to also assign that keyword to the photo, regardless of whether the keyword appears in the XMP:Subject or IPTC:Keywords fields.
To be consistent with your explanation, it seems like Lr should not create a keyword at all.
LR's behavior matches my explanation. When LR encounters a Metadata Working Group region with a face name, it creates the face rectangle in the LR catalog and a keyword for the face name, associated with that face rectangle. When LR encounters a keyword in the XMP:Subject or IPTC:Keywords fields in an imported photo, it assigns that keyword to the photo. This behavior is entirely consistent with the MWG standard, but it clearly isn't desirable for people trying to import Picasa photos, since Picasa doesn't put the face names into XMP:Subject or IPTC:Keywords.
The core issue here is that LR and Picasa use the metadata fields in different ways to represent faces and people, and the MWG standard doesn't have anything to say about that (unfortunately).
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Hi...long shot but I think my problem relates to this thread. I have asked this separately. I am using LR to face tag photos. First run using auto face detection and then manually add those missed out. Save to XMP checked and have also manual saved (Ctrl +S).
Essentially I wanted to check that all my metadata was saved so copy and pasted photos to new folder in file explorer (not LR) and added new folder to LR. Added photos using Sync. All data good but faces randomly do and don't appear. People keywords all present but in some photos, the squares assigned to them not there. Have done this via Dropbox and opened in another copy of LR. Same.
This happens to the same set of photos. Deleting and redoing face tags doesn't work. Ran face detection again (new uodate). No change. It's as if there's something about these particular photos that doesn't let this happen. Not smart enough to run exiftool to see what's wrong. Used Picasa to look. Again some are, some arntar. Same photos always. Picasa seems to 'see' old face tags that I had ammended (originally labelled tag as '''Ally" but then changed to "Alexandra"). Picasa lists both!
Very confused! My previously seamless workflow has ground to a halt on account of this as I don't want to waste days doing someythat doesn't work. Help much appreciated!
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Akuaba,
This is a bug in the Metadata > Save Metadata To File command. See this bug report: Lightroom: Person keyword only fills "people shown" IPTC Extended tag on export | Photoshop Family C... . And see my posts in that bug report:
You could add your constructive opinion and Me Too vote to the bug report in the hope that Adobe might eventually fix this after so many years. But unfortunately, a senior Adobe employee said this behavior was "by design" and gave a nonsensical justification for it. So it's very unlikely it will ever get fixed.
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Thank you. This is very frustrating. I still don't understand why this happens with some pictures only. What is it about those particular images - about 30% - that prevents the region being recorded/read. I have run exiftool and can see that both the original and the copy are exactly the same; both have a name and a region assigned.
A bad system is worse than no system at all. Having been lured to commit a huge amount of time on LR, I now find it was a waste of time. There are alternatives like iTools I will probably have to switch to...I'll add my opinion and Me Too vote. Thanks again for your reply.
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i have used Tag That Photo to sync up MWG (picasa) and MS face tags, as well as keyword names. then LR CC can see them properly.
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Here is what I found that fixed the problem for me
Below is the solution to get face tags from windows photo gallery to Lightroom for me. Be sure to backup your files.
*** Backup your files ***
Move people names to keywords for Lightroom. Do this if you're using lightroom, do not do it if you're using picassa. I haven't yet been able to check to see but I'm guessing I will have to "convert it to a person tag" in lightroom keywords since they show as descriptive tags but I have tested everything else.
With Exiftool, open the command prompt and navigate to the folder with exiftool in it:
Add the people names to the keywords
exiftool "-xmp:subject+<regionname" FolderName -overwrite_origional_in_place -m -r
This came from: