A method for detecting a facial area on a color image includes (a) placing a search window on the color image, (b) determining if a center pixel of the search window is a skin color pixel, indicating that the search window is a possible facial area candidate, (c) applying a 3-rectangle filter to the search window to determine if the search window is a possible facial area candidate, (d) applying a 4-rectangle filter to the search window to determine if the search window is a possible facial area candidate, (e) if steps (b), (c), (d) all determine that the search window is a possible facial area candidate, applying an AdaBoost filter to the search window to determine if the search window is a facial area candidate, and (f) if step (e) determines that the search window is a facial area candidate, saving the location of the search window.