Group Photo Age Detector

The face detector scans the whole photo and returns a box for every region that looks like a face. A strict pass runs first and keeps only confident detections. If it finds nothing at all, a relaxed pass runs and anything it finds is marked rough. There is no fixed limit on the number of faces; what limits a group photo in practice is face size.

Each face needs enough pixels for the age model to read texture and shape. In a wide group shot, people at the back or the edges can be only a few dozen pixels across, and those are the faces most likely to be missed or to get a shaky estimate. A higher-resolution original, rather than a compressed copy from a chat app, makes a clear difference.

Faces are numbered by size, largest first, and the same numbers appear on the boxes drawn on the photo and on the face chips beside it, so you can always tell which estimate belongs to whom. Tap a chip or a box to see that face's details: the estimated age, the age band, the male or female read with its confidence, and the stability range from the mirrored and cropped re-runs and a photo quality meter for that face.

The group summary pulls the numbers together: how many faces were found, the average estimate, and which face got the youngest and oldest guess. Remember that each figure has its own margin; two people a couple of years apart in the summary may simply be inside each other's range.

• Family line-up: see whether the model can tell parents from grown-up children, and who it thinks looks youngest.
• Reunion then and now: run an old class photo and a new one, then open Compare to put the two side by side.
• Friends' guessing game: everyone writes down their guesses before you reveal the AI's.
• Many separate photos: if you have a folder of portraits rather than one group shot, the Batch tab estimates up to 30 photos in one go.

• Use the original photo file rather than a screenshot or a messaging-app copy.
• Crop a very wide shot so the faces take up more of the frame, then run it again.
• Even light helps: faces in shadow at the edge of a flash photo are often misread.
• Faces turned sideways or partly hidden behind someone's shoulder are often missed.
• Sunglasses, caps and heavy blur all reduce the chance a face is found.

A group photo contains other people's faces, so it is worth a moment's thought. Only analyse photos you have the right to use and that the people in them would be comfortable with, and do not share their estimates without asking. The detector itself keeps everything on your device: the photo is analysed in your browser, and the downloaded image is saved only where you choose.

The estimates are guesses from appearance. They are less reliable for children, older adults and some skin tones, and they must never be used to judge anyone's real age, to check whether someone is old enough for something, or to identify anyone.