Put Existing Face Tags into Photos

Please Note: This paper is now Obsolete:

Picasa Build 136.18 has just gone live and includes a tool to Write Face tags to XMP.

You can get it at http://picasa.google.com/ or by going to the Help menu -> Check for Updates

One feature that I think will be very useful is the new Experimental tool to Embed existing Face tags into photos.

Before now only new face tags were being embedded, so if you enabled face tagging by going to Tools -> Options -> Name Tags, and checking "Store Name Tags in Photos", Only nametags added after the box was checked would be stored in Photos.

Before using the Experimental tool, ensure that Tools -> Options -> Name Tags, "Store Name Tags in Photos" is checked.

With the new tool you can go to Tools menu -> Experimental -> Write Faces to XMP... And you can select 3 options for embedding face tags.

1. Write Selected - Writes the face tags only into the photos that are selected before running the function.

2. Write Faces - Writes all face tags into photos that have face tags. This doesn't touch photos that don't have face tags.

3. Write All - Writes XMP tags into all Photos whether they have faces or not. Makes sure all photos have XMP tags whether or not there are any faces in the Photo.

Please note that options 2 or 3 will take a long time if you have many Photos.

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With Picasa 3.9, Google added the option to store Nametags in the Metadata that is part of each photo file. This makes it harder to lose the nametags because of database errors or by moving and copying photos outside of Picasa.

In Picasa, when you enable the option Tools -> Options -> Name Tags -> Store Name Tags in Photo, any faces you tag from that point on are saved in the XMP Metadata of that Photo. Any existing Photos that have faces already named don't update to the new method, but instead the name tags remain where they were originally in the hidden .picasa.ini file in the folder containing the photo.

This paper shows two safe Methods to read the existing Nametags and move them into the XMP Metadata in the photos.

Three Additional Methods are outlined here: Other Methods

These methods assume the Store Name Tags in Photo option is enabled.

To enable the option, go to top menu Tools -> Options -> Name Tags -> Store Name Tags in Photo.

Go to the End of this paper for some useful tools to help you view the Metadata in your photos

Method 1 - Update Name Tags on a Single Photo (Or small number of photos)

This is the safest method and is appropriate when you want to embed the face tags into one or a small number pf photos one at a time.

• 1. On top menu click "Tools > Options > Name Tags > Store name tags in photo" should be checked

  2. On top menu click "Tools > Options > Name Tags > Enable face detection" should be checked

  3. Check if there are any unnamed faces on the photo?

  4. If so, name the face and all faces will be stored into the photo.

  5. Skip the rest of the steps, you are done!

  6. Double-Click the photo to put it in edit mode.

  7. In edit mode, do an edit you will notice like slide the Fill Light slider half way up.

  8. Right-click on the photo and select "Save".

  9. After the save, in the edit tools click the "Undo Save" button.

  10. Next click the "Undo Fill Light" button to get rid of the small edit.

  11. The Face data should now be embedded in the XMP tags in that Photo's MetaData.

Method 2 - Update All Name Tags in Collection (Rename People Method)

This method was developed by Roblin199, The_Roggy, Frank25 and Many Others with slight modifications

1. In Tools/Options/Name Tags, make sure "Store name tags in photo" is Checked.

   1. Select the first person in people, then type CTRL-A (hold Ctrl Key and type A) to select All faces for that person.

   2. Right mouse click on one of the Face thumbnails and select "Move to new person"

   3. Create a new name e.g. the original name with ZZ in front so you will remember the original name.

   4. Repeat step 2 t o 4 for all people in the People Collection.

   5. Select the first person in people that starts with ZZ, then type CTRL-A (hold Ctrl Key and type A) to select All faces for that person.

   6. Right mouse click on one of the Face thumbnails and select "Move to new person"

   7. Move the person back to the original name which should still be in the people list.

   8. Repeat step 6 t o 8 for all people in the People Collection whose names start with ZZ.

   9. After all the people are moved back to the original names, delete the empty people folders starting with ZZ.

Frank25:

During this procedure all tags are written to the picture. I did this for abaut 1400 people. This was a hard job but it worked. I used win 7 professional and picasa 3.9.0 (v. 136.09, 0).

Useful Tools

Online Tool for Viewing Metadata in Photo files

Here is an online tool that can read face tags from jpegs. Follow these steps:

1. In picasa right click to a photo and selecet "copy full path"

2. Click here http://regex.info/exif.cgi

3. On the webpage click "browse", then right click to the filename box and paste. Then click Open.

4. Click "view image from file"

5. search for "face" and in previous row you will see the face tag

Picasa Button to install in Picasa for Viewing Metadata in Photo files

Follow the steps in this link to install the Allinfo button in Picasa:

https://sites.google.com/site/picasastartersite/custom-picasa-buttons/allinfo