Patent ID: 8750578

Claim:
A method of in-camera processing of a still image including one or more faces as part of an acquisition process, comprising: identifying a group of pixels that correspond to a face within at least one digitally-acquired image on a portable camera; acquiring a stream of images including the face; performing the following steps in real time as the stream of images is acquired by the portable camera: tracking said face within said stream of images; for each interval of a plurality of intervals within the stream of images, performing: determining a smile classification for the interval; and based on the smile classification, updating a confidence parameter; after updating the confidence parameter for each of the plurality of intervals, making a smiling decision based, at least in part, on the sign and absolute value of the confidence parameter; wherein each interval of the plurality of intervals includes one or more imam from the stream of images; initiating one or more smile state-dependent operations selected based upon results of the smiling decision.