Image from New York Times Article
Several scientists from Tel Aviv University have developed a new beautification software that applies an algorithmic formula to a photo in attempt to make the photo “more beautiful”. This New York Times article features a series of before and after shots that supposedly show the effects of the software.
They ran the photographs of 92 women and 33 men through the engine, creating before and after shots — essentially, a computer-generated version of “hot or not.” Changes were made only to the geometry of the faces; unlike the digital retouching done for fashion magazines, wrinkles were not smoothed and hair color was not changed.
At the heart of this software is the belief that beauty is subjective and quantifiable. The scientists applied a formula that was based on features that are generally believed to be the most beautiful and desirable across the board.
Studies have shown that there is surprising agreement about what makes a face attractive. Symmetry is at the core, along with youthfulness; clarity or smoothness of skin; and vivid color, say, in the eyes and hair. There is little dissent among people of different cultures, ethnicities, races, ages and gender.
In the example of the woman above, the after picture (to the right) completely altered the facial characteristics that made her look like her.
“I think the after picture looks great, but it doesn’t really look like me at all,” she said in an e-mail message. “My entire bone structure, face shape and eye size is different, and my lip color looks changed as well.” She added, “I would like to keep my original face.”
I think it’s dangerous to continue to develop programs like this one that alter the way people look. As a society, we are completely obsessed with before and after shots. These days we especially love the “how I got my body back” shots that show Jane Celebrity in her bikini right next to a photo of what she looked like right after having her baby.
“We have always had a huge industry to make people look better,” Dr. Etcoff said. “Everyone wants to look better. And we keep taking it further and further to all these images that have been doctored. There is a whole generation of girls growing up who think it’s normal not to look the way they really look.”
I would like to live in a world where beauty is not measured by how symmetrical one’s face is. As naive as I might be about this, to me, anyone can be beautiful, regardless of whether or not they have features that are considered conventionally beautiful.
What a waste of scientists’ time and money. Aren’t there better things to do? Jeez.
..hmm…science has yet to invent an instrument which measures the beauty of a human soul
These kinds of software are so odd…I did an online one where you upload a photo and then the computer gives you your supposed racial/ethnic makeup based on your facial features, summetry, etc….me? something like 80% Asian/Chinese! Apparently I’m a middle-aged white woman whose facial features signal that I’m actually Chinese.
!
Why does a “beautiful” face have to be a homogenized face?
What happens when you upload the face of a model – Isabella Rosselini or Agyness Deyn or Giselle Bundchen – into that program?
So, to be “beautiful” she shouldn’t have those big lovely eyes, huh? I’m betting people comment all the time on how beautiful her eyes are, and they are a big part of what makes her unique.
I hate this kind of stuff and I agree that there’s GOT to be better things for these so-called scientists to work on.
this is truly frightening. everyone is beautiful.
They should really be applying facial recognition algorithms (even if they’re just recognizing certain geometric features) to AI. That’s the offshoot of this kind of crap — wait until the MIT Media Lab kids get their hands on this. Don’t worry, those scientists didn’t “waste their time” — REAL science is going to scrape these algorithms and make something useful out of them. 😉
I think most of the people look better in the “before” picture anyway.
I was going to leave this here, but it grew into it’s own thing. I have some thoughts on the very nature of beauty itself over at my place. Hope you don’t mind a bit of blog-whoring, I didn’t want my comment to detract directly from your post.
Though I’ll point out what I said at the end, it seems beyond dangerous that an “objective” standard of beauty just happens to coincide with European ideals of physical perfection. The example photo is alarming when you realize that this woman’s entire ethnic identity has been taken away with the retouching.
You should see what that program did to Brigitte Bardot. It completely deflated her lips and made her face narrower. Also it did strange things to Michael Cera
I think its interesting. I read the article and it was very well rounded and the emphasis ended being put on that differences are what make us beautiful . . . the slide-show that they had of the different celebrities that they tried this on, actually didn’t make them look any better, and sometimes not even different.
Still very interesting.
What I find disturbing is our complete obsession, as a culture, about our looks. The soul and spirit are ultimately what matter. Our looks change nothing, positive or negative, in this world of ours.
So creepy.
Ironically, I think she’s prettier in real life — the after picture just looks bland by comparison.
Wait, the picture on the right is the “beautiful” one? But the face on the left is so much more interesting! The “fixed” photo doesn’t look quite right to me – not quite real.
Ugh. I am so effing sick and tired of the pervasive LYING that the media does to us – LYING in the form of showing us photoshopped pictures and not telling us up-front, “We erased any acne scars he had” or “We made her waist look narrower.”
Instead, these faked pictures are presented as what people “should” look like. And of course, no normal person can. So we have hundreds of people (thousands?) walking around feeling ugly and inadequate (I know because I was there myself once) because of what they see on the cover of magazines.
Thats was a really interesting post, i really like your block I have added it to my favourites – keep up the good work!
I wonder if there is a place were you can upload your own photo in to this program. I am curious to what they would make me look like, although I agree with most people the woman at the top of this post has more chacter before.
Wow. I can’t believe all the silly responses freaking out about inner beauty and uniqueness. And the people who said this is scary. What i find scary is that none of them can read apparently. If you read the original article, the purpose of this experiment is clear. It’s not to set a beauty standard or say that beauty is only about certain things. It is to show how minor the changes are in faces that are WIDELY viewed as beautiful, and how easy it is to teach a computer to doctor a photo to achieve something we thought was so subjective.
That brings me to my other point, “t the heart of this software is the belief that beauty is subjective and quantifiable.” That sentence doesn’t really make sense. I think it should be “objective and quantifiable” or perhaps “subjective but quantifiable.” In general the words that are paired are: subjective/qualitative, objective/quantitative.