The identity of the faces in your pictures is stored in the Contacts folder within the Picasa2 folder. But, the information that says, вЂthat face is Harry JonesвЂ™ is stored in a file called contacts.xml which is located in the user configuration/database folders for Picasa (e.g. Deleting the database will not touch this information вЂ“ itвЂ™s in the picture folders. The information that says, вЂthis picture includes a faceвЂ™ is stored in the hidden picasa.ini file that is located in the same folder as the picture. The face recognition part of Picasa is a bit complex. If you didnвЂ™t have that set, then youвЂ™ll need a backup of a Picasa file called contacts.xml. Read more about SyncвЂ™ing Name tags and Google Account contacts. This setting is located on the Tools Menu, People Manager. Picasa will be able to recreate your nametags.

for Gmail) and you have set the option in Picasa to вЂSync with ContactsвЂ™, then youвЂ™re all set. Prevent Losing Name Tags by Synchronizing If you say Yes вЂ“ which you need to do if you have a corrupt database вЂ“ you will be deleting an important part of the face recognition information. It is important to realize that, when you uninstall Picasa, you have the choice of deleting the database. The Official method is to uninstall Picasa and reinstall it. The delete the folder technique still works, but it is not the officially recognized method for dealing with the problem. The Alt/Ctrl/Shift method has been removed вЂ“ IвЂ™m not sure when. Open Picasa while holding down Alt/Ctrl/Shift. In the article I detailed 2 procedures for fixing the corruption. And now, with face recognition there are more issues. It doesnвЂ™t happen so much anymore, but there are still times you need to re-install Picasa and rebuild its database. In it I wrote about the scary things that you see in Picasa when its database gets corrupted. Quite some time ago, I wrote an article called, вЂњ Picasa Tip: When your pictures get вЂњAll Messed UPвЂќ. Q: If I re-install Picasa and delete the old database, what happens to all the face tagging? I have spent a lot of time getting my ~10,000 pictures or so all tagged with named faces. Note: a more recent article on this topic can be found at Keep your People Named by Checking this Box.

Picasa replacement