Face Search Best Practices: How to Get the Most Accurate Results

The accuracy of an AI face search depends significantly on the quality of your input photo. Here are the practices that consistently produce the best results.

Photo Quality Fundamentals

Resolution

The face in the image should be at least 150×150 pixels. Higher resolution is better. If you have multiple photos of the same person, choose the highest resolution option for your primary search. Heavily compressed JPEG images lose detail that can affect accuracy — PNG screenshots are often better quality than JPEG thumbnails.

Lighting

Natural, even lighting on the face produces the best results. Very harsh shadows that obscure one side of the face, very bright backlit photos where the face is in shadow, and heavily filtered or artificially lit photos all reduce accuracy. If you have multiple photos with different lighting, try the one with the most even, natural light.

Face Positioning

Angle

Front-facing is best. Slight angles (up to about 20-25°) are fine and often produce equally good results. Profiles (90° from front-facing) are harder to match accurately. If your photo shows a significant side angle, the search may still work but with lower confidence scores.

Cropping

Crop the image to focus primarily on the face when possible. Including a lot of irrelevant background doesn't directly harm the search (the AI focuses on the face) but a tighter crop helps ensure the face detection step properly locates and processes the face. Leave some space around the face rather than cutting off the edges of the head.

Running Multiple Searches

If you have multiple photos of the same person, run multiple searches. Different photos may produce different matches depending on the angle and lighting — a photo taken from a slightly different angle may find results that the primary photo missed. Compare results across searches for more comprehensive coverage.

Interpreting Results

Focus on high-confidence results first (80%+). Review medium-confidence results (60-79%) as potential matches that need manual verification. Low-confidence results may be coincidental matches — verify carefully before acting on them. Always click through to the source to confirm the match visually rather than relying solely on the confidence score.