A system and method wherein the parameters used for face recognition are determined via an evolutionary algorithm, such as a genetic algorithm. Candidate sets of parameters are evaluated for face recognition performance in a given environment. The most effective sets of parameters are used to generate offspring sets of parameters, and these offspring sets are subsequently evaluated for face recognition performance. This process is repeated, with each generation of offspring sets inheriting attributes of the most successful sets, until the system converges on a set of parameters that exhibits superior performance for the given environment. In like manner, other sets of parameters are determined for other environments. When the face recognition system is deployed, the appropriate set of parameters is used, dependent upon the environment in which the target images originate. In this manner, the system exhibits superior performance in each of the environments in which it is deployed.