Picasa 3.5 brings facial recognition to the desktop
Roughly a year after rolling out facial recognition on its Picasa Web Albums site, Google on Tuesday is introducing an updated version of its Picasa software (for Windows | Mac) that can recognize faces in photos stored on users' computers.
Just as it does on the Web, Picasa scans your photos for faces, then groups together photos of specific people. It's then your job to tell it who they are as well as confirm its guesses. If someone you're tagging is in your Google address book, you can also look them up very quickly with auto-complete. Otherwise, Google gives you the option to add them as someone new; this information then gets synced back up your Google address book.
Picasa's software can now scan for faces, and offer up recommendations of people it thinks are your contacts.
(Credit: CNET)The system worked very well for me, but it was slow going. I had to leave the program running overnight for it to finish processing my 3,700 or so photos for faces. It also had my processor humming, since it was doing all the work on my machine instead of Google's giant server farm.
That's not to say Google hasn't included a few things to help speed up the process. For one, if you've got photos that are both hosted online and on your hard drive--and that have already been scanned for faces, the Picasa software can grab that information and add it to your local library. This saves it from having to scan the same photos twice.
And for photos it thinks contain people you've verified as contacts, it gives you quick "yes" and "no" buttons that can add or reject name tags. Oftentimes, clicking "yes" adds a few more suggestions for photos of that person that the program feels is safe enough to recommend. There's also a way to group accept or group decline its suggestions, which saves time you would have otherwise spent clicking the buttons one at a time.
Users can now geotag their photos right in the Picasa, just like they can in Picasa Web Albums.
(Credit: CNET)As with Picasa Web Albums, your reward for trudging through your photos to add tags is better organization, which for a massive library of old, archived shots can be hugely helpful. And unlike Picasa's albums feature, name tags let you quickly sort all of your photos by who's in them--not when they were taken or how you've personally organized them. It also continues to do this with any photos you add to your library in the future.
Along with facial recognition, the new version of the software integrates Google Maps--a much-wanted feature among geotagging fans. Just as you're able to do in Picasa Web Albums, you can search for a location in Google Maps, then amend that geographic data to your photo. You can also view groups of photos by place by clicking on little red map markers that show where individual photos have been placed. Unlike the facial recognition feature though, this is still largely a manual process of doing a search for each location then adding it to a photo, or group of photos, at once. That is, unless you have a camera with GPS (which most people don't).
One big thing Google is bringing to the table with this release over something like Apple's iPhoto (at least for Mac users) is the capability to tag items that are spread out across your entire computer, as well as external drives. In that regard, it does a much better job than iPhoto when it comes to automatically importing and organizing photos--all without disturbing where they're stored. Considering it now does much of what iPhoto is able to do with faces, with the added bonus of grabbing that contact information from your Google address book, it makes for a very seamless experience.
The new version of the software should appear as an update for users of Picasa v3.1 the next time they start the program. It can also be forced to update by clicking the "check for updates online" option in the help menu.
Previously: Revamped Google Picasa site identifies photo faces
Josh Lowensohn writes for Webware.com, CNET's blog about Web applications and services. E-mail Josh, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/Josh. 
http://connectedflow.com/flickrexport/iphoto/index.php
http://apps.facebook.com/picasauploader/
iPhoto is free to anyone with a Mac, which you need to run it. Yes, you have to pay for upgrades but given the life of a computer, you shouldn't have to buy one very often. Also, Apple has zero anti-piracy on it so people can pretty much just take if they have low morals.
Do you want me to list the things that Apple has that are free? First if you buy a Mac there is a lot of free stuff that you get. Things are now free that didn't used to be because Apple starting giving them away for free and the industry followed. Like webcams and microphones. What about Safari? Free as a bird to use. It's whether or not you like it or think anything else is better is irrelevant because it is free.
You might argue that the "free" things are only free if you buy something else or as a tool to get you to buy something else. That may be true. However, how is Picasa paid for? Google makes money off ads and makes a lot of money. Nothing is "free". It's free to you but you are paying for it in another way.
secondly, along the lines of the other comments, windows live photo gallery also has been doing this for a long time, and maintains the info and tags when you upload to places like facebook
I'm installing this as we speak and looking forward to see if it does the trick for me since I change my facial hair style on a regular basis. hehe, I'll keep you posted
Kudos, Google. I've been waiting for this feature.
Brings pain to sort 400 albums in the folders I choose.
I mean, c'mon. It did start out as a photo organizing tool now, isn't it??
Well, over 48 hours later (of running constantly), it is only 45% through my folders. I have well over 20,000 photos.
I have two kids that kind of look a like, so I'm finding that it is getting them mixed up quite a bit and I have to assign them to the correct name.
Know going into this that if you have a lot of photos, it is going to take a long time and lots of effort to get everything sorted out correctly.
I'm not exactly confident I'll find it that useful.
Also, there isn't a clear to turn the feature off--at least I haven't found it. Once it was installed it just started scanning for faces immediately.
It did take awhile to scan all the photos, but it was pretty efficient in locating faces. There were plenty of people I couldn't ID because they were just other people in a crowd or in the background of the person I was taking a picture of. It also spotted faces in photos sitting in a room and faces in screenshots from games, which was amusing.
The facial recognition is far from perfect, but it does group pictures of the same people, so for me it was a lot easier and faster than having to ID each person in each photo, which I've never done.
So it's a kind of useful tool, but there's plenty of room for improvement.
- by Franz Gruber September 29, 2009 3:40 PM PDT
- People need to be aware of Google's Terms of Service, because by using Picasa you are agreeing that Google may do whatever it likes with your pictures. Note the following:
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (36 Comments)11. Content licence from you
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.
11.2 You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.
11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this licence shall permit Google to take these actions.
11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above licence.
This is why I stay clear of Picasa and several other Google services.