Comments on: Picasa 3.5: How to Turn Off Face Recognition

By: Ric T

Ric T — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:36:19 +0000

Let me start by saying Picassa is a pretty cool bit of software. I like it and have used it a long time and have it as I like it but I have just had problems along with many others with the ‘face recognition’ update.

So I start up Picassa and it starts doing an auto update, then before I know it, it’s busy doing something that is going to take hours AND I don’t know what it is doing because I never asked it to do anything. Then I frustratingly work out what it is doing but can find no way of interrupting it! Who is in charge here!
Why oh why try to add features in this heavy-handed way. Make me aware of it and allow me to turn it on please not vice-versa.

Now I have this half filled folder at the top of my list called ‘People’ which I don’t want and can’t clear down or disable. Why can’t I have my folders as I LIKE them. Stop being too clever and forcing stuff onto users like this. Yes, a lot of people may like it. Fine, then let them turn it on, don’t default to everyone gets everything.

Other than that, keep up the good work *8-}

By: Amis

Amis — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 18:45:46 +0000

For version 3, go to Tools, than Options, then name tags

By: Alex Nielsen

Alex Nielsen — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 09:13:20 +0000

I am enjoying my Picasa experience so far EXCEPT the Face Recognition being on by default and not having a “clear and easy” method to turning it off. It frustrated me that while I was tinkering with the program, I had this long “scanning” procedure going on in the background until I finally gave up searching the options on my own trying to figure out how to turn it off and google’d for the solution.

For future releases of Picasa, have this OFF by default… because it greatly frustrated me that I had this feature running and had no idea how to stop it. Felt pretty invasive.

By: Chris Guld

Chris Guld — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 09:03:25 +0000

Andy – the instructions you mention are to turn face detection on or off folder by folder (of course turning it off for the My Pictures folder will get most everything) – this will also remove any face information that has already been done. The instructions in the article still work to turn the face scanning feature off altogether.

By: Andy F.

Andy F. — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 04:33:37 +0000

Sorry Chris – perhaps for Picasa 3.5 but the instructions don’t apply to Picasa 3.8.
The steps are:
-TOOLS/FOLDER MANAGER/FACE DETECTION OFF and happy deleting

By: Chris Guld

Chris Guld — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:16:08 +0000

Andsy = well then, this article is for you, telling you how to turn off the feature. btw, face recognition doesn’t crop your photos – it doesn’t touch your photos. It just shows you each face in the photo so you can identify it *if* you want.

By: Andsy Robertson

Andsy Robertson — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:16:19 +0000

I did not ask for face recognition. I do not want it. Picasa did not ask me if I wanted it. It may be “neat” software, but why would I want to save cropped pictures of movie stars or every picture I ever saved? That is too invasive. Picasa and Google are assuming that the average computer user is too stupid to crop their own pictures. I resent that implication!

By: sigh

sigh — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 15:39:29 +0000

I really love these advanced features.

What i dont like is that they go and scan your harddrive without even asking for your permission.

Reason enough for me to ditch picasa.

By: No one

No one — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:32:19 +0000

Can’t remove faces from the People Folder. Turned Face recognition off and faces appeared in the People folder anyway. It should be obvious. Right click on the folder or faces, no option to remove permanently. Should be able to delete faces, and should be able to disable face and people folder using Rt Click.

By the way. I had to uninstall to cancel face scanning. Why can’t I cancel and disable scanning from the scan status tool?
I like to import folders manually. Why can’t I choose folders during the install?

Picasa install takes off automatically importing folders in My Documents. No control previous to the scan. I have to remove all pictures from My Documents to keep Picasa from importing.

I really don’t like the faces scan and will never use it. Why not ask to add this feature, as an add-on?

Oh yes, the delete from Disk in the pull down windows will delete whether of not the files are visible in the current view. It deletes whole folders, current images, and all the edits to those images. Once deleted there is no undo. I lost a ton of work with that smartalick function. Fortunately I found the files in Recycle bin but I lost all my edits on hundreds of images. There should be a way to undo accidental deletes.

By: Chris Guld

Chris Guld — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:03:48 +0000

hmmm – not exactly sure. With most albums, you can just click on the album and press Del. I don’t see an ignore faces album on mine. But – I do see an ‘Unnamed People’ album and, while viewing that, I have the choice of ‘Show Ignored Faces’ or ‘Back to Unnamed.’ The ‘ignored faces’ album doesn’t seem to get in the way to me.