More and more users like to process their photos and for this they use photo editing applications. One of the most popular is digiKam, which has many functions that will help us manage our photo collection. In its latest update, the application has added a new facial recognition function with which to organize our photo library.
DigiKam has incorporated a new facial recognition function, thanks to which the software will automatically search for all the photos with the same face and will take care of tagging them for us. The application will rely on the tags we create to automatically recognize and tag them. So we can make a list of people in our photo collection that will be very useful to organize and find the desired photo.
Carrying out this task is a simple task, since we will only have to tag one or more photos of that person and the rest of the photos will be tagged automatically. Thus, later we can have our collection of photos completely ordered based on the labels of the faces.
Learn how to use digiKam’s face detection feature
Download the app for free
The first thing we must do to take advantage of digiKam’s facial recognition function is to install it on our computer. It is a free and multiplatform application that we can download from its website . The installation file is quite large and reaches 188 MB, requiring up to 500 MB for a complete installation. Its installation is very simple because the wizard will take care of everything quickly and will not install any additional software.
Add a folder and photos
Once the application is installed, we must run it and add a folder of images where to insert the photos to our collection. To do this, in the task bar, click on the “Album” tab and then on “New”. A floating window will appear, where we can fill in data such as Title, Category or album date. Once finished, click Ok and it will appear in the “Album” category in the left bar. Later we must copy the photos to the folder by dragging and dropping and choosing the option “Copy here”.
Add a face sticker
Next, we need to add labels to each face. To do this, we must open an image and click on the “Add a face label” button to select the face through a rectangle. Once selected we must write the name of the person and in this way his face will be labeled. To ensure and obtain greater precision, we can assign the label already created to another photo, so that the program can easily identify faces.
Later we must access the “People” section that we will find in the “Browse” tab, the first of the options that we find in the toolbar. Once inside we can see the labels that we have created.
Now, what we want is for the program to search for all the photos that contain that tagged person . At the bottom we find a section where we can make some settings to perform the scan. For example, in the “Search in” tab, we can filter the folders where we want to scan the face, in order to speed up the process.
Choose the degree of sensitivity
In the Preferences section we can specify the sensitivity that the program must have when performing the “Precision of the faces”, which we must configure between 0 and 100. The higher the sensitivity, the greater the possibility that the program recognizes the faces , but it will also be easier for him to confuse them with other people and end up labeling those who should not, so we must try to find the right sensitivity.
Scan the collection of faces
The next step to carry out is to press the button “Scan the collection of faces” that we find at the bottom of the screen. Once this is done, the program will search for all the photos in our collection and will show us all the photos tagged with the same face that we have tagged. The process will take more or less depending on the number of photos we have.
In this way, we can use this powerful image viewing program to create a face tag and thus easily identify all the faces in our photo gallery. Although the recognition process is not perfect and it may not always be able to get all the labels right and some of us may have no choice but to make them by hand. We can also search for a scan of the face individually . To do this, right-click on the photo and within the contextual menu that will appear we select “Scan faces.”
The final result will depend, above all, on the quality of the image and that the person has not changed much in their appearance between photos. Later, when we go to find photos of a specific person, we just have to click on their face tag and all the matching photos will be loaded.