iPhoto 09 - Faces

I just upgraded to iLife 09. About the only new feature I've tried out is Faces in iPhoto. It is pretty cool. It scans the photo library, looking for faces. That takes hours, at least on old G4 Macs with large photo libraries like ours. Once that's done, you pick some photos with faces and identify those faces. After that, it will guess the identity of faces in other photos, and you can either confirm or change those guesses (see photo above). It's pretty good at guessing, but it's far from perfect. It often confuses Thomas and Ava -- not surprising, since they do look alike. It works best if the face is well-lit, facing the camera, not tilted, and without too much contrast. One pleasant surprise: after I tagged numerous photos with my own face, it correctly identified the first one it came across in which I had a beard.

It's especially good at identifying Johanna. I don't know if it's because she's the only redhead in most of our photos, or if she's just more aware of the camera than the other kids and is usually looking straight at the camera and posing.