facial recognition software

February 20, 2018 6:05 PM

I have two photographs of an important person in our local history. I found a third image that I think matches her. How can I use facial recognition software to solve this? Is there a website I can upload the pics? Would an iPhone X do this for me or is their software only for locking the phone?

A little money would be OK for this. Say, $25.

posted by cda to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Response by poster: These are photos from the 1890s - so no privacy concerns.
posted by cda at 6:36 PM on February 20, 2018

You can search for similar images using Google. I think it only works with Chrome but you go to google images and drag the image file into the search bar. While not exactly "facial recognition", but more "does google know this image". Might be worth a shot.
posted by vac2003 at 7:05 PM on February 20, 2018

Facial recognition software is not magical and its results will never be more definitive than those of your own eyes and brain. If I were you, I'd be spending my $25 looking for supporting evidence in other places.
posted by flabdablet at 7:06 PM on February 20, 2018 [13 favorites]

There are a variety of photo management apps that include facial recognition, but from my (limited) experience they aren't very sophisticated. Mine keeps mistaking me for my friend's older brother despite the fact that we have very different hair colour & length, oh and I'm neither male nor Chinese. But we have similar noses, so there's that.
posted by Secret Sparrow at 7:46 PM on February 20, 2018

Seconding flabdablet that facial recognition software is not going to solve this. One technique that can be helpful is to compare both photos side by side but upside down (just turning them over helps our brains to look more objectively at particular features since we aren't busy forming them into a human face), and zero in on comparing the shape of the nose and the ears.
posted by exutima at 3:00 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]