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Face recognition

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  1. Lightroom Classic User Guide
  2. Introduction to Lightroom Classic
    1. What's new in Lightroom Classic
    2. Lightroom Classic system requirements
    3. Lightroom Classic | Common Questions
    4. Lightroom Classic Key Concepts
    5. Lightroom Classic tutorials
    6. Feature summary | Lightroom CC 2015.x/Lightroom 6.x releases
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    2. Sync Lightroom Classic with Lightroom ecosystem
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  5. Import photos
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  6. Workflows
    1. Apply Masking in photos
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    5. Adjustment Brush: the basics
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  7. Workspace
    1. Workspace basics
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  8. Viewing photos
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  10. Maps
    1. Work with the Map module
  11. Organize photos in Lightroom Classic
    1. Face recognition
    2. Work with photo collections
    3. Group photos into stacks
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    5. Use keywords
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Lightroom Classic lets you quickly organize and find images using facial recognition technology. Lightroom Classic scans your image catalog to find potential faces for your review and confirmation.

Video: Use facial recognition to organize your photos

Adobe Systems

Index faces

  1. In the Library module, switch to the People view. To do so, select View > People or press O. Alternatively, you can click the  icon on the toolbar.

  2. Lightroom Classic prompts you to find faces in your catalog. Click one of the following options:

    Start Finding Faces In Entire Catalog

    Enables background face indexing. Lightroom Classic detects faces in all photos in your catalog. Depending upon the size of your catalog, full indexing may take a while.

    Only Find Faces As-Needed

    Leaves background face indexing disabled. Detects faces only in folders and collections that you select.

    Lightroom Classic CC Index faces
    Index faces in your catalog

  3. If you chose to find faces in the entire catalog, wait for indexing to complete. You can continue to work as Lightroom Classic indexes your images. Lightroom Classic uses imaging characteristics to find faces, and then stacks images of similar faces together.

    Once the initial indexing is complete, face indexing continues to run in the background. Faces in any images added later to the catalog are automatically detected.

    Lightroom Classic CC Indexing
    Indexing in progress

Tag images

To tag an identified stack, simply type a name beneath it in the Unnamed People area. All photos in the stack are automatically tagged with that name.

Lightroom Classic CC tag images
Tag a stack of images

Lightroom Classic All stacks tagged with the same person are merged
All stacks tagged with the same person are merged. As you begin typing a name that you've entered earlier, Lightroom Classic autocompletes it.

As you tag stacks and images, Lightroom Classic moves them from the Unnamed People area in the People view to the Named People area.

Lightroom Classic CC named people area
The Named People area begins to populate

Note:

Lightroom Classic automatically adds these names to your keyword list as People keywords.

Tag images individually

Instead of working with a stack as a whole, you can tag one or more images. Do the following:

  1. Expand the stack by clicking the count of images in it. Alternatively, with the stack selected, press S to expand the stack.
  2. Select one or more images in the stack.
  3. Tag the selected images in one of the following ways:
    • Drag and drop the images on a stack in the Named People area.
    • Drag and drop a people keyword from the keyword list on the images.
    • Tag the images one-by-one by entering names beneath them.
Note:

If you notice some images in the Unnamed People area that are not part of any stack, you can use these approaches to tag them.

Confirm name suggestions

Once the Named People area has some tagged images, Lightroom Classic identifies similar images and prompts you to confirm the suggested names.

  1. Double-click a person in the Named People area.
  2. In the single-person view, review the suggested names in the Similar area.
Lightroom Classic suggests names for similar photos
Lightroom Classic suggests names for similar photos

  1. Click the checkmark next to a tag guess to confirm it.
Lightroom Classic CC Confirm a suggested name
Confirm a suggested name

Tag images in the Loupe view

Tag detected faces

You can also tag images in the Loupe view.

  1. Click the Draw Face Region icon ().
  2. Once Lightroom Classic identifies one or more faces in the image, tag them.
Lightroom Classic CC Tag a detected face
Tag a detected face

Tag undetected faces

If a face is not easily discernible in an image, Lightroom Classic may not be able to detect it. You can draw face regions manually in such cases.

  1. Click the Draw Face Region icon ().
  2. Draw a rectangular face region on the image.
  3. Enter a name to tag the face.
  4. If necessary, tag more faces.

Disable automatic face indexing

You can disable face indexing in Catalog Settings. Do the following:

  1. (Mac) Select Lightroom Classic > Catalog Settings.
    (Windows) Select Edit > Catalog Settings.
  2. On the Metadata tab, deselect Automatically Detect All Faces In All Photos.
  3. Close the Catalog Settings dialog box.

Find faces again

Introduced in Lightroom Classic CC 7.3 (April 2018 release)

Lightroom Classic CC 7.3 (April 2018 release) has been optimized for more accurate detection of faces in your catalog photos.

If you've previously run face-detection manually on your photos, perform the steps recommended below to upgrade the existing face records in your catalog to the new face engine. You can perform these steps at any time after updating to Lightroom Classic CC 7.3. If you don't perform the recommended steps, the existing face records are upgraded as-needed for displaying in the People view.

Note:

The steps listed below are not required if you have enabled the Automatically Detect All Faces In All Photos option in Catalog Settings. In this case, Lightroom Classic automatically upgrades the existing face records in the background.

Recommended steps to upgrade the face records

  1. In Library module, select All Photographs in the Catalog panel. 

  2. Select all photos in the Grid view or the Filmstrip. To select all photos, choose Edit > Select All or press Ctrl+A (Windows) or Command+A (macOS).

  3. From the menu bar, choose Library > Find Faces Again.

  4. In the Find Faces Again dialog, ensure that the following options are selected.

    • Skip Over Photos That Have Not Been Previously Indexed
    • Skip Over Photos With Manually Confirmed Faces

    Click Confirm.

    Lightroom Classic now re-runs face detection to upgrade the existing face records but excludes photos that have never had face detection run before. Any photos that have at least one confirmed face or at least one manually drawn face region are also excluded to preserve your previous edits; the unconfirmed faces is those photos remain unconfirmed.  

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