How does PhotoStructure populate the Who tag?

PhotoStructure’s Who tag root is populated automatically from face metadata your camera, photo editor, or backup tool already wrote. You don’t tag people in PhotoStructure today — you tag them in Picasa, digiKam, Adobe Lightroom, Apple Photos, Google Photos, or your preferred face-tagging tool, and PhotoStructure imports those names on sync.

👤 People from face regions

Most face-tagging tools write region metadata following the MWG 2.0 Regions standard. PhotoStructure reads any RegionList array containing entries with Type: "Face" and uses the Name field:

{
  "RegionInfo": {
    "RegionList": [
      {
        "Name": "Joe Bloggs",
        "Type": "Face",
        "Area": {
          "X": 0.36,
          "Y": 0.29,
          "W": 0.13,
          "H": 0.18,
          "Unit": "normalized"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

This is what Picasa, Adobe Bridge, Adobe Lightroom Classic, digiKam, and many other tools write. The tagFaceRegions setting controls whether PhotoStructure reads them (default: enabled).

📦 People from Google Takeout

Google Photos exports include a people array (some exports use the singular person) in the per-photo JSON sidecars:

{
  "people": [{ "name": "Alice Smith" }, { "name": "Bob Jones" }]
}

PhotoStructure reads these by default. The tagJsonFaces setting controls whether they are imported. See the Google Takeout guide for the full Takeout import flow.

🏷️ People from other tag fields

Some tools write person names to dedicated metadata fields rather than face regions. PhotoStructure also reads these (configurable via the whoTags setting), defaulting to:

• People
• PersonInImage
• PersonInImageWDetails.PersonName
• PersonInImageName
• RegionInfoMP.Regions.PersonDisplayName (Microsoft RegionInfo, used by Windows Live Photo Gallery)

If your tool writes person names to a different field, add it to whoTags and the next sync will pick them up.

💡 Tips

• Editing sidecars works. Adding or renaming a face region in an XMP sidecar and resyncing will update the Who tag in PhotoStructure.
• Name parsing is configurable. PhotoStructure can split names into family/given hierarchies, handle international name orders, and apply default family names — see the name parsing guide.
• Pets count. If your face-tagging tool tags pets as faces, they show up under Who too.

See also

• Name parsing — formatters, name order, international names
• Google Takeout — full import details for Google Photos exports
• Keywords — how PhotoStructure handles keyword metadata (separate from face tags)

• Guides