Faces in images are quickly detected with minimal memory resource usage. Instead of calculating a Haar-like feature value by subtracting the average pixel intensity value in one rectangular region from the average pixel intensity value in another, adjacent rectangular region, a face-detection system calculates that Haar-like feature value by dividing the average pixel intensity value in one such rectangular region by the average pixel intensity value in the other such adjacent rectangular region. Thus, each Haar-like value is calculated as a ratio of average pixel intensity values rather than as a difference between such average pixel intensity values. The feature values are calculated using this ratio-based technique both during the machine-learning procedure, in which the numerical ranges for features in known face-containing images are learned based on labeled training data, and during the classifier-applying procedure, in which an unlabeled image's feature values are calculated and compared to the previously machine-learned numerical ranges.