Self-hosting a photo library is one of the most common starter projects for building a home lab. And it's become straightforward enough. Install Immich, point it to your folders, and you're done.
But once you actually start using it and importing your data, you realize it isn't as easy as that. Yes, old backups, exports from other services, and years of images from multiple devices all appear in one place. However, very quickly, you realize that your library isn't quite as clean and sorted out as you'd thought. There are duplicates, face groupings that don't match, incomplete albums, and almost certainly inconsistent metadata.