iPhoto Disk Backup: Faces?

[Small White Car]

So I took my laptop on vacation. I imported photos onto it and tagged the faces there.

Now I'm at home and I burn an iPhoto backup DVD of the pictures so I can put them in my desktop's main iPhoto library. All of the faces data doesn't come through...all the people are 'unnamed' again.

On the DVD there is a file called face.db. What is that, if it's not backing up the face data?

Am I doing this wrong? Do I really need to re-name the faces in all 2,000 photos?

 

[mrkgoo]

So I took my laptop on vacation. I imported photos onto it and tagged the faces there.

Now I'm at home and I burn an iPhoto backup DVD of the pictures so I can put them in my desktop's main iPhoto library. All of the faces data doesn't come through...all the people are 'unnamed' again.

On the DVD there is a file called face.db. What is that, if it's not backing up the face data?

Am I doing this wrong? Do I really need to re-name the faces in all 2,000 photos?

Sounds like it. The faces.db is indeed the file that keeps the face info (it's not the only part - there are also thumbnails and things associated with each face in other folders).

The thing is, your Desktop Library has it's own face database. On import, it will only reimport the image file, not associated tags. As far as I'm aware, there isn't a good way of doing this. I don't recommend that you mess about trying to copy faces.db and other stuff around either, that's a surefire way of corrupting your database.

I suggest in future, if you want a consolidated library on your Desktop, to refrain from adding tags and things until you have imported there.

 

[mrkgoo]

Although I have never used this software, so I can't vouch for it, it seems this may do what you want:

http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/

I'm guessing it has scripts that will go through and make the appropriate edits to the database files and so on.

I'm not totally versed in exactly how iPhoto handles it's databases nor how this program will alter them (I'm guessing it will simply be editing the database files simultaneously as the appropriate files themselves), but it's possible it does something that future updates to iPhoto may not recognise. It would be prudent to make a backup before attempting anything.