Tagging face names from Google Takeout json files

[fivestones]

I have gotten my photos from google takeout, and found some very helpful info about using exif to tag the jpgs based on the json files that google takeout gives you (here: https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=9972.0, and here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42024255/bulk-join-json-with-jpg-from-google-takeout).

What I can't find mention of is what to do with the facial recognition tags that google takeout gives me. I see some info about reading face names from xmp data with exif when I search this forum and google, but nothing about writing face names to a jpg.

How can I modify this command to include writing face names?

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exiftool -r -d %s -tagsfromfile "%d/%F.json" "-GPSAltitude<GeoDataAltitude" "-GPSLatitude<GeoDataLatitude" "-GPSLatitudeRef<GeoDataLatitude" "-GPSLongitude<GeoDataLongitude" "-GPSLongitudeRef<GeoDataLongitude" "-Keywords<Tags" "-Subject<Tags" "-Caption-Abstract<Description" "-ImageDescription<Description" "-DateTimeOriginal<PhotoTakenTimeTimestamp" -ext jpg -overwrite_original FileOrDir

Here is an example json file I have:

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cat IMG_7123.JPG.json
{
  "title": "IMG_7123.JPG",
  "description": "",
  "imageViews": "0",
  "creationTime": {
    "timestamp": "1428282329",
    "formatted": "Apr 6, 2015, 1:05:29 AM UTC"
  },
  "modificationTime": {
    "timestamp": "1594552329",
    "formatted": "Jul 12, 2020, 11:12:09 AM UTC"
  },
  "geoData": {
    "latitude": -28.35901388888889,
    "longitude": -46.28985555555556,
    "altitude": 13.0,
    "latitudeSpan": 0.0,
    "longitudeSpan": 0.0
  },
  "geoDataExif": {
    "latitude": -28.35901388888889,
    "longitude": -46.28985555555556,
    "altitude": 13.0,
    "latitudeSpan": 0.0,
    "longitudeSpan": 0.0
  },
  "people": [{
    "name": "Fred"
  }, {
    "name": "Bob"
  }],
  "photoTakenTime": {
    "timestamp": "1398778141",
    "formatted": "Apr 29, 2014, 1:29:01 PM UTC"
  },
  "googlePhotosOrigin": {
    "photosDesktopUploader": {
    }
  }
}%

[StarGeek]

One thing to note is that Google doesn't strip away any metadata, so unless you added info on the website, you don't need to do anything.  A lot of that data should already be in the images.  Take a look at the files with exiftool to double check.

Also, can you tell me how you got Google to do some facial recognition?

That json file has some names but doesn't have any region data.  Run exiftool on one of the json files with names to get the tag names with this command
exiftool -g1 -a -s /path/to/file.json

That will give you the tag names to copy from.  You can then copy the names into other tag such as Subject, though you would want to use +< in this copy as well as the other copy from Tags.

[fivestones]

Thanks for your help!

Also, can you tell me how you got Google to do some facial recognition?

I'm not sure I did anything. The faces were tagged as part of google's usual face recognition when I uploaded the photos, and when I did google takeout, there they were in the json.

I did see a post (here: https://www.reddit.com/r/PhotoStructure/comments/k45uhx/google_photos_users_you_may_want_to_takeout_if/) that seems to imply it's just something google has started including in google takeout for google photos right now. Maybe if you just run a google takeout you will have them all in there?

As far as the Subject tag, is that where names usually would get store (i.e., if I put my photos in some photo app like photoprism will it be likely to recognize things in the subject field as names of people in the photo?)

Finally, would you mind giving me an example of the command you would use to copy the names into the subject tag with exiftool?

Thanks!

[StarGeek]

As far as the Subject tag, is that where names usually would get store (i.e., if I put my photos in some photo app like photoprism will it be likely to recognize things in the subject field as names of people in the photo?)

Subject is where keywords/tags are stored.  It's common to put people's names there.  Additional tags would be PersonInImage, which is less common, and RegionName. The latter is usually assumed to have a region defined to go with it, but it can be used without. 

Finally, would you mind giving me an example of the command you would use to copy the names into the subject tag with exiftool?

Run this command on the jsonfile
exiftool -g1 -a -s file.json
That will give you a list of all the tags in the json file.  Find the one with the names in it.  You command would then be something like
exiftool -TagsFromFile "%d/%F.json" "-Subject<JSONTAG" /path/to/files/
Replace "JSONTAG" with the name of the tag you found in the first command.

[fivestones]

Awesome. I sure appreciate it.