A few days ago I updated my Picasa photo album software to version 3.5. Among several new features is face recognition technology, which in turn allows you to tag the people in your photos. This has been available on their online Picasa Web Albums for a while but it's new for the desktop application.

At first I had to let Picasa run overnight to analyze my 8,000 photos. Then Picasa groups photos of similar faces together and asks you to name them. In time Picasa "learns" people's faces and will suggest who it thinks people are and allows you to confirm or deny the suggestion. This is pretty cool in the first place but I am absolutely amazed at how good this software is at recognizing faces.

First of all, Patty is an identical twin so you would assume Picasa would have trouble with this. Not too much. Sure it made mistakes but nine times out of ten Picasa could tell the difference between Patty and Lore. And then there are other oddball situations where Picasa keeps surprising me with it's accuracy. Maegan looking through a deeply tinted blue glass with only half her face showing, check. Maegan's friend dressed up for Halloween with drastic face makeup, check. Even photos of people on the wall far in the background, annoying but yes check.

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Update: Here is an excellent article on Picasa's new face recognition feature. Definitely read this before you get started tagging faces in Picasa. I do have to agree with their assessment that Picasa has a lot of trouble with babies, thinking that they're all the same.

Labels: photos, software