Some time ago, Windows Photo Gallery introduced a nifty face recognition feature dubbed People Tags. Windows Photo Gallery would detect and recognize faces which you could then tag with the names of your contacts.
The face information would be saved back to the file as XMP metadata using the Microsoft People Tags Schema. This means that the Face recognition information was saved within file instead of being kept seperate in the app’s database. This is a plus for archivists which would like to preserve this information within the file, but also comes with certain privacy issues.
An amazing additional feature is that you could optionally connect your Facebook account to Windows Photo Gallery and upload photos to that social networking service from the app. Windows Photo Gallery would maintain a link from the photos on your PC to the copy in Facebook. If any of the faces in the uploaded photos were tagged in Facebook by you or others, it would be then also tagged back to the original photo on your PC via Windows Photo Gallery. In a way, you could leverage Facebook to crowd source your people tagging efforts. Quite useful for class reunions or large family gatherings and you wanted others to do the heavy lifting of identifying people in photos. Sadly, this particular functionality was shut down when Facebook decided to pull the plug on Facebook Connect.
Microsoft’s People Tags can be read by Windows Explorer and some third party applications such as Google’s Picasa, Digikam, Photo Supreme, Photo Station, GeoSetter . The People Tags schema never gained much support with other photo organizing apps as many opted to use the more industry accepted Metadata Working Group Face Regions schema, which interestingly Microsoft worked on as well, but never embraced it in Windows.
There are various options to storing People/Face information, either by storing within the file metadata or in an external file or database. I will try to highlight some these options with this post. In all you may have devoted a lot of time in manually including People Tags in your photo collection, so here are some ways to ensure that effort has effort was not in vain. Select the option or options best suited for your workflow.
All of these options can be accomplished using the very nifty exiftool utility. In my previous post I described how to install this utility, so I will not delve into that how to on this one.
First things first, as with any file operation which involves modifications, ensure you have backed-up your photos before proceeding.
Exporting People Tag Data to a File
The following command will export the people tag persons displayed names to a tab-delimited file named PeopleTags.txt which can be opened in Microsoft Excel or a database such as Microsoft Access. This is particularly helpful when you wish to create an index or analyse you photos’ metadata fields in ways your photo manager may not be capable of.
exiftool -T -Directory -Filename -RegionPersonDisplayName -r *.jpg > PeopleTags.txt
The -r flag stands for recursive and will ensure that files within subdirectories are included in PeopleTags.txt.
Converting People Tags to MWG Regions
Given Windows Photo Gallery end of support, you may be considering using then the more established Metadata Working Group Face Regions schema for storing such information back to their photo files. Adobe Lightroom, for example, uses MWG Face Regions for the same purpose of labeling faces in photos.
In addition to the exiftool executable, you will need to ensure you have the proper exiftool config file for converting mp tags to mwg. The config files extend exiftool functionalities to do other things. In this case, the config file needed is the convert_regions.config which can be obtained in the full Image-ExifTool (.tar.gz) distribution or downloaded from here. A forum discussion thread on the subject can be found here.
The command to use to convert Microsoft People (MP) Tags to Metadata Working Group (MWG) Regions is:
exiftool -config convert_regions.config "-regioninfo<myregion" *.jpg
Copy People Tags to photo keywords (XMP Subject)
For Face Regions to be displayed in Adobe Lightroom, the MWG Face region name needs to be accompanied by a keyword. As far as I know, this is not mentioned in the MWG spec, but it is a quirk in Lightroom. To accomplish this you can use the following command. Also, as keywords/tags are read by many photo management applications this is a good way to make person’s names available, or when uploading files to a site such as Flickr which reads this information and adds them as tags to the photo.
exiftool *.jpg -"xmp-dc:Subject+<RegionPersonDisplayName"
Copy People Tags to “Person Shown in Image”
The IPTC Extension Schema has another way to record persons depicted in the image which can also be a useful way to preserve the names of the people in the image as well. The exiftool tag is PersonInImage.
exiftool *.jpg -"PersonInImage<RegionPersonDisplayName"
Update 2019-05
Recently I came across Tag That Photo, which is a Windows desktop application which has a face detection and recognition functionality similar to Windows Photo Gallery’s. It can read Microsoft People Tags as well as MWG Face regions. The fully licensed version writes face metadata back to the file as MWG Face Regions. The app seems like a good option to support other photo management apps which read MWG by providing a decent face recognition engine.
Thanks very much for your post on migrating people tags from WLPG to LR. It works great!
There are 2 other issues I am grappling with: :
1. many of my old photos have no GPS data, but were “geotagged” in WLPG. The corresponding data appears correctly in LR in the Metadata “IPTC extension”. But. Is there a way using exiftool to make it also appear in the IPTC itself (Country – State/Province – City) to allow location search ?
2. WLPG captions transfers twice: to LR: in “Title” and in “Caption” (not always though). Is there a way to avoid that ?
Many WLPG users would be grateful if you have any help to give us on that.
Best,
Pierre
Glad to help. For the other issues:
I wrote a post on the metadata fields WPG uses.
1. You would need to copy the IPTC extension tags to the IPTC Core tags. Something like:
I would be careful when executing this command, given that it will overwrite any values in the IPTC Core Location fields. Make sure you execute this only on the files you wish to perform the copy operation. I ran into a similar issue and decided to export all the metadata into an Excel file in order to pick which files I wanted to reconcile the metadata fields.
2. Not that I am aware of. By design, WPG's "Caption" upon edit will overwrite various other fields such as Title, Description.
I’m trying to migrate people tags from Windows Live Photo Gallery to Lightroom and/or Photoshop Elements. In what folder do I place the convert_regions.config file? Thanks
You will need to put the convert_regions.config in the same folder you have the exiftool.exe. This file adds functionality to exiftool.
Thank you!!! There was some other info that I found in adobe forums that had different fields for the second step and it wasn’t working.
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1823216
exiftool “-xmp:subject+<regionname" FolderName -overwrite_origional_in_place -m -r
But even your second step seemed not to work as I was trying Essentials 2018 but that didn't seem to reflect any of the tags in the file other than the geo. Downloading Lightroom Classic however showed all the tags and the face boxes and names! Whoohooo!! Only problem now is that I can't justify Lightroom's subscription for my non-professional use and Essentials is apparently gimped. Reaallly miss WLPG and (secondarily) Picassa. Can't find anything else nearly as usable for organizing, tagging and light editing.
Glad I was able to help!
You mentioned “Essentials 2018”, but did you mean “Adobe Elements Organizer 2018”? If so, maybe something was changed in that version in the way the application reads MWG Region tags.
The new Windows Photos app just recently added Face Recognition, but this information is unfortunately, not written back to the file like WPG. I still use WPG, but as of Jan 2017, it is no longer supported.
Here are some other applications for managing photos:
– IDImager Photo Supreme (Reads WPG People Tags).
– Digikam (Free, also reads WPG People Tags)
– ACDSee
– GeoSetter (Free, I use this for geotagging alongside WPG, can also read WPG People Tags, as well as other metadata).
Here is another post with other alternatives: https://www.geckoandfly.com/2306/alternative-photo-organizer-acdsee-10-photo-manager/
Yes, I meant Elements, I just got Windows Live Essentials in my head and can’t edit after I submitted. 🙂
I don’t have WLPG installed as I’ve rebuilt and couldn’t get it to install correctly so I was using it as a way to force me to find something as a go-forward solution. I’m still trying to force myself to stop using Digital Image Pro and use the Affinity Photo program I bought a while ago (primarily for things I scan, less so photos taken). Tough to get over the learning curve of the new thing, especially when it requires more steps to do the same thing.
My primary data related needs are around what I shoot which is basic events with family, friends, vacations, etc so my data concerns are mainly file naming and event or area tagging (so I remember what the heck it about) and group common things together like 4th of July gatherings), geotagging, and of course people as that is the 1st or second most useful thing I use as needing finding shots of a person is the most common thing we do other than perhaps finding the photos of an event/trip/etc.
Thanks for the other options to look at. I’ve used GeoSetter for a long time alongside WLPG and love it for what it does. I’m checking out Cyberlink’s PhotoDirector as it apparently has decent face tagging and can read existing tags (though I’m not sure which ones yet.) I really want to have a WLPG/Picassa like program where i can do all (or as close to all) data related things as well as quick/basic editing as I hate having to juggle between apps. So something like ACDSee looks great but it is out as it can’t do people.
Wow, Digital Image Pro, was a good product at the time. I have tried to find a worthy replacement to Windows Photo Gallery, but I still fall back to using WPG over time, for its speed and simplicity. WPG is not without its faults but a good photo management app in the end. which covers most of my photo management needs. Microsoft should open source Windows Photo Gallery and let a community of developers keep it going.
Some time ago I tried Photo Supreme – http://www.idimager.com/WP/?page_id=20 has decent features as well as support for Face tagging.
I just got a copy of Adobe Elements Organizer 2018 and it does not honor MWG face tags. Plus when you add face tags the MWG metadata is not updated. I suspect but have not proved it also ignores MWG location tags. Face tags in Elements Organizer seem to be stored in the catalog database rather than the image metadata. Disappointing. But the search continues…
Hello Nathan,
I have not tried it out with the latest version of Adobe Elements. Did you add the MWG using another application other that Adobe Elements Organizer? If so, have you tried adding people’s names as keywords as described in my post? Would like to check if Elements 2018 picked up Lightroom’s quirk of needing to have a person’s name as a keyword as well as the MWG Face tag name in order to display it. Keep me posted on your findings.
I may have jumped the gun. The next day I opened the catalog back up and the face tags were there. Maybe reloading the catalog “refreshed” things. I did add the people as tags as well. I should try it the other way and see what happens.
I downloaded a trial of Lightroom Classic and it displayed the WLPG face tags no problem. Too expensive though. I have tried an even dozen PC and cloud solutions and nothing seems to be 100% perfect. I think I will settle on Elements because I own it and it does most of what I want. Thanks for the great blog!.
Good to hear! It could be that Elements was still in the process of refreshing/ re-indexing its catalog after the restore. It can take some time depending on the number of photos on your PC.
I am having an issue similar to what you are describing that hopefully you can help me with. Like you, I really liked the facial tagging feature of WPG. So, when support ended, I searched for another program that would perform the same features. I eventually ended up with Adobe Elements 15 Organizer. Unfortunately, at the time, I didn’t know of any way to import my existing facial tags, so I painstakingly went through and added them again using the face tagging feature in Organizer.
Fast forward a couple of years… I recently purchased a new laptop. But, much to my dismay, when I installed my Elements package on my new laptop and re-discovered all of my pictures, none of the face tags were recognized by Organizer. I thought that perhaps the face tag data was never written to the files, so I sought out other programs that WOULD write this data to the files in the future. I figured that if I was going to have to tag them again, this would be the last time.
So, I discovered digiKam, and when I imported my photos, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the face tags I had already done were still there. So, why didn’t they import into Adobe Organizer? I would just completely ditch Organizer and go with digiKam, but the stacking of similar faces in Organizer is REALLY nice, and much easier than what is available in digiKam.
Btw, I did backup my Organizer database, but it looks like it backs up all the pictures along with the database. So, I’m afraid that it’s going to overwrite all my photos if I do a restore, and I’ve added and changed some photos since I did the backup. So, I’m afraid of what kind of mess I’ll end up with if I do a restore. It may be worth it in the end though…
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!
Yikes! On your new laptop are you using Elements 15?
Yes
Thanks, have been trying to convert my library from WLPG using this method, but when I look some photos the regions are in the wrong spot. It is not on all photos, possibly something to do with if the photo has been rotated as they would be correct if they rotated 180deg. I am not sure if this is camera specific, but at least has happened across a few devices.
I also tried the TagThisPhoto and it looks to do the same, though it is still running so haven’t assessed fully yet. Any tips other than manually fixing 1000’s of photos.
Fot migrating face tags from WLPG to Lightroom: Use exif commands — It worked very well for me (with more 100 000 photos in WLPG).
Check the exif forum on the subject:
http://u88.n24.queensu.ca/exiftool/forum/index.php?topic=6476.0
You can also use exif commands to export the WLPG Location tags to IPTC tags read by Lightroom:
exiftool “-iptc:City<XMP-iptcExt:LocationCreatedCity" DIR where DIR is the directory that contains youtr photos
Repeat command for State and Country
Hello Anthony. I also recently stumbled upon that problem and it is driving nuts. The issue arises from how Windows handles image rotation and the Exif image orientation tag. May sound confusing, but in a nutshell:
There are two ways to rotate an image. One is rotating the image per se (the contents in the file). This method may slow down a camera the moment a photo is taken, as it is processor intensive. So many devices, opt for the second option which is saving the photo in the orientation it was taken and simply setting a flag (Exif orientation) which dictates the orientation so applications can later orient accordingly when an image is viewed/edited.
The problem with this approach is that some apps differ how they treat the EXIF orientation value. Up until Windows 8, file explorer and other MS apps would ignore the EXIF Orientation value. From Windows 8 onwards, they would display the image according to the EXIF value. However, when you rotate an image it would maintain the previous behavior which it would rotate the image content, but would not update the flag.
References: https://www.ivertech.com/Articles/Image-Rotation-Issue-With-Windows-10.aspx and https://www.howtogeek.com/254830/why-your-photos-dont-always-appear-correctly-rotated/
So, in WPG, if an image has an EXIF orientation value other than the typical “Horizontal (Normal)” most likely WPG would apply the People Tags face regions incorrectly, but will still display it as “aligned”. That is why in an app such as Tag That Photo, the region placement seems misplaced.
I have read various ways to avoid and correct this and appreciate Pierre’s comment. I am testing these out.
So far, I am inclined to do the following:
1. Using exiftool, set the EXIF orientation tag to – “Horizontal (Normal)”, erase any MWG an MS People Tag Face Regions.
2. Using WPG correct the image orientation. Again, WPG will ignore the EXIF flag. It is my understanding that this rotation is lossless.
3. Using WPG add again the People Tag Regions.
Seems a bit laborious, but I am very careful with preserving the metadata. Setting the correct rotation and labeling the EXIF as “Horizontal (normal)” should ensure consistency across other applications and services.
I will post back once I got the set of commands finished and working.
Here is another discussion in the exiftool forums discusses a method in rotating the regions:
http://u88.n24.queensu.ca/exiftool/forum/index.php?topic=10183.0
Runing the following command it will generate a tab delimited report on your photos, orientation and WPG Regions. Simply replace DIR with the folder where your photos are stored:
exiftool -T -Filepath -Orientation -RegionRectangle -r DIR > PhotoOrientationReport.txt
I opened the file in Excel and filtered the images with exif orientation tags other than Horizontal normal or blank with region metadata. In my photo collection it is a small percentage, still significant.
I am testing out some exiftool commands to rotate the regions.
Hi,
I am searching for a solution to have tags on photos which is not modify/rewrite the photo files.
It is possible?
Thanks.
Any solution which embeds or write tags to the file will modify the file in some way, the image quality is typically preserved (if this is your concern) when metadata is applied to the file as the image data is not altered. However, it is not uncommon for user to preserve the original file so in those cases an .xmp sidecar file could be use. Essentially, it is a companion file which maintains the metadata keeping the original intact. For example, the open source DarkTable app does this (https://www.darktable.org/), among others. I personally, prefer the embedded metadata because the information will “travel” with the file, but again, there are scenarios in which you may wish to “strip” all metadata from the file and keep it separate. Also, another drawback with sidecar files is that if you move the files you will need to ensure you also copy the corresponding sidecar files. Hope this helps!