How to switch off automatic Face Detection

[Jim K.]

I just try to get familiar with IMatch 2023. Log time ago I used IMatch 3 (bought in 2006) and used it quite intensively; then bought IMatch 5, but did not do much with it because of business reasons. Until today I store my photos in a directoy structure year – month – day; only about 40000 files in total.

Now I imported just for testing some files in a new database. During the update IMatch immediately begins with face detection, ending up with showing the annotation sign; opening the file shows the proposed region there software detected a face.

As IMatch 2023 has so many other nice, powerful features to get familiar with, I am not interested to use this feature by now (although somewhere in future I am sure I will use face detection and recognition).

So long introduction – short question: how to deactivate face detection?

P.S.: Automatic Face Recognition is set to "no" in preferences-applications (see IMatch help), but still running...

[Mario]

Welcome to the IMatch community.

Edit menu > Preferences > Application: Automatic Face Recognition controls whether or not IMatch automatically detects faces when ingesting files. This is off by default.

If your files already contain XMP face regions stored by another software, IMatch imports the face regions and tags (to create persons) and performs face recognition to complete the data record. See Working with XMP Face Regions for more information. This is independent from automatic face recognition.

You can check in the Metadata Panel. Switch to the "Browser" layout (to see all imported data) and then search for region name. If this tag exists, the files contain XMP face regions and IMatch will import them. IMatch creates face regions itself during write-back so other applications can access the region data.

Having face annotations and persons unlocks many useful features in IMatch, from the People View to automatically organizing files by the persons shown, face arrangement, number of persons in files etc.

[Jim K.]

Thank's for your quick response.

The photos I took regarding face detection were all done with iPhone. To be sure it was was not some software which later changed (added) information in metadata I just took a photo and checked for XMP face regions: Apple software itself creates such data (mwg-rs...) when storing the photo.

Looks like I have to play around with face detection / recognition before getting productive with IMatch  (it's fun anyway to have a closer look to all the subtleties in your software)

[Mario]

iPhones perform face recognition for a variety of purposes
And store them in the XMP metadata record. Most of the time they get it right, but sometimes they store face regions with a width and height of 0. Which is why IMatch needs special routines dealing with broken Apple face regions...
IMatch imports the regions and uses the face region to create the face fingerprint and the region tag to link the face to existing persons in your database, or create new persons.

IMatch does a lot more with faces and persons than other software or devices. From the People View to IMatch Events to variables to Design & Print to...
I recommend reading the People help topic (or what's relevant from it for you) and watch some of the free video tutorial in the IMatch Learning Center.