Years ago I had written an app in VBA to write my face tags using ExifTool so that when it was uploaded to Google Photos (or elsewhere) they would be recognized. However through extreme complacency, I lost it when my hard drive died and I had not backed that application up.
I'm now trying to recreate that functionality, but I've hit a wall where the face tags I write are visible in ExifTool and also recognized as mwg-rs tags but neither Google Photos nor Picasa reads them. Not that these programs are the most important thing, but to me it indicates I've done something wrong in my implementation that I know can work because I've done it before, and because when I restored my photos (which were backed up), Picasa could read the face tags that were embedded in the files
Here is the output:
QuoteH:\Photos\Utilities>exiftool -XMP-mwg-rs:all "H:\Photos\2010-2019\2018\beach vacation.jpg"
Region Applied To Dimensions H : 3024
Region Applied To Dimensions Unit: pixel
Region Applied To Dimensions W : 4032
Region Area H : 0.069775
Region Area Unit : normalized
Region Area W : 0.040178
Region Area X : 0.274057
Region Area Y : 0.272817
Region Name : Bartholemew Sherris
Region Type : Face
Is something missing? Mis-formatted? Thanks in advance!
I know Picasa has its own way of storing face information. It is best to tag a face in Picasa then use ExifTool to see what it wrote.
- Phil
Unfortunately Picasa has always been unreliable with respect to storing face information in files, which is why I've been using ExifTool. I've been unsuccessful getting it to write any face metadata to files the past few days, but the tags above mirror what I see in images I've previously processed on my old system.
I guess I'm hoping I missed someone can point to something obvious I missed in the MWG standard so that it's readable by other apps & websites
Quote from: Phil Harvey on December 28, 2023, 01:13:46 PMI know Picasa has its own way of storing face information.
I'll have to double check as it has been a long time since I used Picasa, but I'm pretty sure it used the MWG regions.
Luckily, I still have it on my computer.
...but you wrote a config file (https://github.com/exiftool/exiftool/blob/master/config_files/picasa_faces.config) to convert between Picasa, MWG and MP regions?
- Phil
Picasa does write the XMP-mwg-rs regions. But it doesn't read the XMP that exiftool writes by default. You have to use the -api Compact option (https://exiftool.org/ExifTool.html#Compact), specifically, -api Compact=All otherwise Picasa won't read it. A lesser compact setting might work but I didn't try to narrow that down. It has no problem reading other XMP that exiftool writes by default, just the region data.
I'm not sure what region data Google Photos might read. I cleared the XMP data, added an image to Picasa, and named a face region. Picasa wrote the data out. I uploaded the image to Google Photos. Google Photos did not recognize the region created by Picasa, though it did find the face on its own.
Unless you can find a photo where Google Photos does recognize an already embedded region, there isn't much more that we can do.
Quote from: Phil Harvey on December 28, 2023, 02:48:17 PM...but you wrote a config file (https://github.com/exiftool/exiftool/blob/master/config_files/picasa_faces.config) to convert between Picasa, MWG and MP regions?
Yes but it has literaly been years since I used Picasa, so I wasn't sure offhand. But it does write MWG regions and can read them, though it
-api Compact=All in order to read the images. It has no problem reading other XMP data regardless of the Compact setting.
Ok, further results
Picasa will also read Microsoft XMP-MP regions. It will read them without need for -API Compact=all. Google Photos does not read Microsoft regions.
I also tried IPTC regions. Google Photos didn't read them either.
Quote from: Phil Harvey on December 28, 2023, 02:48:17 PM...but you wrote a config file (https://github.com/exiftool/exiftool/blob/master/config_files/picasa_faces.config) to convert between Picasa, MWG and MP regions?
Ah, I didn't double check that link. I assumed it was the Convert Regions config.
Picasa would write regions into the file if an option was set to do so,
but in doing so, it would also remove the MakerNotes of some cameras. It definitely removed Nikon MakerNotes, as that is what I use but I don't think it removed Canon MakerNotes. My notes indicate that it would also remove MakerNotes from Sony, Pentax, Minolta, and Casio cameras. The MakerNotes are removed if Picasa wrote
any data, not just region data.
Picasa also saved the data in an XML file and an .ini file in the directory that contained the photos. I created that config file in order to get the data into the file without allowing Picasa to destroy any other data.
Quote from: StarGeek on December 28, 2023, 04:04:32 PMUnless you can find a photo where Google Photos does recognize an already embedded region, there isn't much more that we can do.
I appreciate the investigation! I've come to discover I was not as diligent or thorough as I thought I had been with my photos - restoring them from my online archive made me realize that a very large percentage of the metadata I thought had been saved in the file had not been - or possibly had been locally
after it was archived. I'd been attempting to find good examples/proof but after years of working with them, I can't tell what Google identified on its own, what it used metadata for, or what was manually entered on their website.
Now I'm trying to push metadata back into these apps and websites, which I think is the opposite use case of most people.
I'll take a look at api compact-all