Storing Faces in Metadata
You have the option to save information about tagged people directly in image file XMP metadata instead of relying solely on Tonfotos data files. This ensures people's data is usable across various cataloging tools, even years later. Additionally, sharing photos with people's info makes it easier for your friends and family to identify people in them.
There are two ways to include people's info in image XMP metadata:
- Include metadata when exporting the photos. This is helpful for sharing a photo collection that includes the people's data.
- Synchronize photo metadata with people's data, writing that data directly into the photos stored in your library.
Export photos with metadata
When exporting photos to JPEG format, check the Metadata: Include checkbox. The metadata will include information about all people whose faces are confirmed to be in the photos.
Write face data into photos in your library
You can also request Tonfotos to write information about people directly into the XMP metadata of the photos stored in your library. This option can be set separately for each library location.
- Changing image metadata with this function affects duplicate detection, the same as any other metadata update.
- If you work with your library from several computers (for example, it's on a shared network drive), all other Tonfotos installations consider the image files changed and will have to process them again.
- If you change people's names after they have been saved to metadata, the changes aren't updated in metadata. This may lead to having different versions of a person's name in different files.
Because of these considerations, we recommend that you only enable continuous synchronization of people's data with image file metadata after you have organized your library, removed the duplicates, and established a consistent naming strategy for people.
To enable continuous synchronization of people's data:
- On Windows: Select File > Library Locations or press AltShiftL.
On macOS: Select Tonfotos > Library Locations from the menu bar or press OptionShiftL. - In the Manage photo library locations dialog, select the location.
- Turn on the Store faces in image metadata option.
Tonfotos will begin to update the metadata for all JPEG, HEIC, and PNG images in the location and will pause scanning until all metadata is updated. This process may take a lot of time. Only the data about the people whose faces are confirmed is included.