Abstract: The invention relates to a method for recognizing faces in digital images consisting in providing for a knowledge base which contains face images and is hierarchical into several classes each of which comprises different images of the same person. The invention relates to pre-processing said knowledge base in such a way that a minimization of variance in each class and a maximization of variance between different classes are simultaneously obtainable, thereby making it possible to form a vectorial base comprising the discriminant component of said knowledge base. The comparison of a recognizable face with a pre-processed reference face such as the knowledge base and an eventual reconstruction of a recognized face are also disclosed.