If you're shooting images with people in it then IDimager offers the Face Labeling feature that allows you to quickly catalog the people in those picture by using advanced face detection algorithms. To start this feature, first select one or more thumbnails for the images that you'd like to start the Face Labeling for and then click the "Faces" icon in the main toolbar or press [Shift]+[F6]
The interface displays the selected images in the filmstrip at the bottom of the screen. By clicking on a different thumbnail in the filmstrip you can select a different image. The selected image is loaded in the main area. The right side of the screen shows the found faces. Since we haven't started the face detection yet, the sample above doesn't contain those yet.
Starting the face detection
The first thing we'll do is to start the detection process. During this step, IDimager will try to find faces in the image set. Don't expect IDimager to find *all* faces. In general it detects frontal faces with head rotation support from -30 to +30 degrees of in-plane and out-plane rotation. The Face Labeling dialog is however well equipped to help you identify the faces that are not automatically detected.
Start the detection process by clicking the ?-person icon in the upper bar.The icon will turn red and starts flashing and the progress bar starts running. You can click the flashing person icon during the detection process to cancel the further detection.
During the detection process each found face is added to the found faces panel. You don't have to wait for the detection process to finish to start working with the results.
Adding additional face areas
The Face Labeling feature shows the found faces in the right side panel. As you can see the filmstrip includes a counter on each thumbnail that indicates the number of faces found on that image. The set that I've used above includes several photos that don't match the criteria of the face detection and so I've got to identify those myself. Most faces are automatically detected so that takes away most of the pain to go through my images.
The first step after finding the faces is to identify the additional faces that the face detection process didn't find.
Select the first image that have missed faces by clicking on its thumb in the filmstrip.
Simply drag a frame around each face and then move to the next image. Each manually added face area will be added to the list of found faces. Repeat this for every image in your set.
After you've manually added all the missed faces, you are ready to start identifying all the found faces as collected in the right side panel.
Identifying the found faces
Now that we've collected all the faces in the Found Faces panel (right side), we're ready to identify who-is-who.
You can click on a face in the Found Faces panel and the corresponding image will be loaded.
There are several way that you can identity who is in the area.
Identifying the area in the loaded image
The first way is in the loaded image itself. Click on any found face and it is loaded in the main area. Each face on that particular image displays a frame for each found face with a sub caption "(new face)", which means that the face is not yet identified. Identifying a face actually means that we're going to assign a catalog label for that person to that face area.
Click on the sub caption to edit it and enter the name of the person displayed in that area. After you type in the name, press <Enter> to assign that name to the area. If there is a matching catalog label for that name then it is now assigned to that area. If the name is new, a dialog will be opened that allows you to create a catalog label for it now.
If you don't know the exact name, but you know that there's a catalog label for this person then type in the first part, pause and IDimager will suggest a list of matching catalog labels.
Repeat this for every face area in the image and you're done. The Found Faces panel will also show the name of the person as its caption.
Identifying the identical person in multiple images
If you have pictures that display the same person in several images then it's more convenient to assign a catalog label to all of them in one go. While you could process them one-by-one in the loaded image, there's a better way to achieve that.
Simply select all the detected faces of the same person in the Found Faces panel by clicking on them and then, while holding down the [Ctrl] key, clicking on the second one. Repeat this until you've selected every face of the same person.
Now, with the multiple faces selected, enter the name in Quick Assign field that's located above the collection of found faces and press <Enter>. Here too you can create a new catalog label if there's no matching label yet for that person's name.
That's it. Now that label is assigned to all of them. Repeat this for other faces. You can also use this method by selecting a single face of course.