Help me out with the Faces timeline of operation here - having an issue...

Question

I just upgraded to iLife '09. It's awesome! I recently just started using iPhoto 08, and now i've upgraded to 09. Just for a fresh start, I deleted my iPhoto Library and re-imported all of my photos (there were in separate folders outside of the iPhoto Library) so they would be copied to a new iPhoto Library. I am now strictly using my iPhoto libarary.
After importing all my photos (almost 19,000), a little progress wheel popped up next to the Faces library. I assume it is scanning to recognize all the faces in my pictures, correct? I have not yet added any faces to the face library.
Now, will that little wheel eventually finish and stop? It's been going for hours and hours. It SHOULD automatically detect the faces in my pictures and then I can name them, correct? I read that there is supposed to be a estimated timer somewhere, but I see that nowhere.
This is my second attempt at this. Last night I quite iPhoto and it asked me if I wanted to backup the Metadata. I did but it didn't seem like the progress bar was moving, so I canceled. When I relaunched iPhoto, iPhoto had boxed the faces and I named a few. It seemed like it scanned a few and then quite. It found 216 photos of my sister-in-law, but only about 7 of me (the ones I actually chose - no suggested pictures.
Could someone please let me know how this thing operates?
Is it as follows:
1 - Faces does an initial scan of all your 19,000 pictures to box the faces (you just have to wait for 2 days because it's a large library - suck it up)
2 - The faces in my photos should then have boxes around them awaiting me to name them when I go into the Name function, yes?
3 - After I've named and identified several pictures of each person, it should then give me hundreds of suggested photos for each of those individuals?
Again - the wheel has been spinning for hours, I see nothing that gives me any time estimate. HELP!
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Clintage3 wrote:
I just upgraded to iLife '09. It's awesome! I recently just started using iPhoto 08, and now i've upgraded to 09. Just for a fresh start, I deleted my iPhoto Library and re-imported all of my photos (there were in separate folders outside of the iPhoto Library) so they would be copied to a new iPhoto Library. I am now strictly using my iPhoto libarary.
After importing all my photos (almost 19,000), a little progress wheel popped up next to the Faces library. I assume it is scanning to recognize all the faces in my pictures, correct? I have not yet added any faces to the face library.
Now, will that little wheel eventually finish and stop? It's been going for hours and hours. It SHOULD automatically detect the faces in my pictures and then I can name them, correct? I read that there is supposed to be a estimated timer somewhere, but I see that nowhere.
For 19,000 photos I would give it a day without bothering it - it took about 18 hours for 27,000 for me
This is my second attempt at this. Last night I quite iPhoto and it asked me if I wanted to backup the Metadata. I did but it didn't seem like the progress bar was moving, so I canceled. When I relaunched iPhoto, iPhoto had boxed the faces and I named a few. It seemed like it scanned a few and then quite. It found 216 photos of my sister-in-law, but only about 7 of me (the ones I actually chose - no suggested pictures.
Again it is best to give the initial metadate backup adaquate time - I forget how long mine took but the first time was a while - and it is important when you ahve future problems to have a good initial backup
Could someone please let me know how this thing operates?
Is it as follows:
1 - Faces does an initial scan of all your 19,000 pictures to box the faces (you just have to wait for 2 days because it's a large library - suck it up)
I'd guess 12 to 14 hours if the computer is not doing anything else, longer the more other thing are going on - it depends on lots of things - number of photos, number of faces, amount of disk, processor speed,, etc
2 - The faces in my photos should then have boxes around them awaiting me to name them when I go into the Name function, yes?
Yes - within reason - iPhoto is good but far from perfect at this - you will miss some and get some very strange false hits
3 - After I've named and identified several pictures of each person, it should then give me hundreds of suggested photos for each of those individuals?
Maybe - typically it will give you some and after you confirm or deny them it will give you more continuing until it gives you no additional recommendations
LN