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Set key photo in Faces #1
David Edge's picture
by David Edge
March 27, 2011 - 9:32pm

I've just tried to set a particular photo for a person's face as key - just as you would for an album. I thought I used to be able to do this. I'm running Aperture 3.1.2 on OS X 10.6.7

Any ideas chaps?

d.

d.

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 28, 2011 - 12:27am

David,

I don’t have Faces enabled now and would rather not turn it on, but AFAIK you can just roll the mouse over the face tile until you see the one you want, then tap the space bar to mark that as the Key photo. Does that not work?

-Joseph @ApertureExpert

@PhotoJoseph
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Robert Sfeir's picture
by Robert Sfeir
March 28, 2011 - 12:28am

BTW since I’ve turned off Faces and Localization (where it tries to figure out the GPS coordinates of images automatically) Aperture has gained great speed. While I think they’re both useful, I don’t like the additional horsepower they require.

Again another great tip by Joseph.

R

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 28, 2011 - 12:34am

Robert,

Faces and Places only slow Aperture down when it’s calculating. If you have no embedded GPS data, then Places won’t be doing anything. And even if you do, it’s fast, so you shouldn’t get a speed hit.

Faces on the other hand is slow. It’s fantastic technology, don’t get me wrong. And I’m super glad it’s in there. But it needs to get a LOT faster and more accurate. One day, it’ll be so fast and so good you won’t even think about it, and you’ll just search for pictures of “Bob Smith” and find 10,000 photos of the guy. We’re not there yet, but give it time. It’ll happen.

For now, I turn it off though. It just doesn’t fit into my workflow.

-Joseph @ApertureExpert

@PhotoJoseph
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David Edge's picture
by David Edge
March 28, 2011 - 1:58am

Thanks Joseph
It does work; but counter-intuitive to have a method that works in projects but not faces; but at least it does work the other way round - scan and press space works for projects.

Faces is just like any other cost/benefit exercise. How much does it cost; how badly do I want it compared to what else I could spend my money / processor cycles on. So, yes, when I download 30GB of photos after a couple of weeks away, I need to leave it running all night while it gets on with that and everything else it gets up to.

On the plus side I once sat down with my iPod and a new friend and two hours later we’d shared life stories and were bosom chums. A lot of that was down to having access to photos via faces. 70% of the photos I take with faces in them are family and friends; 30% ‘street’. I can live with software with features that I can turn off if I don’t need them.
Cheers
d.

d.

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
March 28, 2011 - 5:08am

David,

I just tried the space-bar to set the pick, and that works in both Projects and in Faces. So not sure what discrepancy you’re seeing?

I think Face detection in it’s current incarnation is great when you’re dealing with a situation where you personally know everyone present, such as a small birthday party. As soon as you introduce unknown faces, it gets a lot harder, more time consuming, and frankly, just frustrating.

On the other hand, in the future, I’d love to be able to run this for something like a wedding. Imagine if you had near-100% accurate face detection on every guest there. The whole thing goes online, and the guests log in and say “that’s me!”. Instantly they can find ALL the photos where they are in (or cross-reference, “I want to buy all the photos of me and that bridesmaid I was dancing with”), and boom you make a good sale. Also their name gets downloaded back into your database (like happens now with names on Facebook), and if you make a sale, their vitals are connected to the account as well. Now you have a pile of very useful information on that person, and you didn’t have to datamine anything—they provided it all for you.

Delicious ;-)

-Joseph @ApertureExpert

@PhotoJoseph
— Have you signed up for the mailing list?

David Edge's picture
by David Edge
March 29, 2011 - 6:57am

Joseph

The inconsistency is that right-click/set key photo works in projects, but not faces. The somewhat less intuitive (ie you need to be psychic to guess it!) roll along and press space bar method works in both.

I’ve logged it as Aperture feedback, although I suspect your voice carries more weight!

cheers

d.

d.

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