selfie corrector software makes your unflattering photos more attractive

this selfie corrector software developed by researchers at princeton university allows you to easily make a ‘more attractive’ version of yourself. the digital tool gives users the option to distort the sometimes misrepresentative and often unflattering portraits that result from photos taken with a front-facing camera. due to it’s close proximity to the subject, these lenses often render the person’s noses larger, ears smaller and foreheads more sloping than they truly are in reality. 

perspective-aware manipulation of portrait photos
video courtesy of ohad fried

ohad fried, adam finkelstein, eli shechtman, and dan goldman’s extensive research on the subject began with a model for generating digital, 3D human heads from a database of 150 people photographed in 20 different poses. next, they used a program made available by researchers at carnegie mellon university to identify nearly 70 reference points of a selfie, like the corners of the eyes, top of the head, placement of the ears and dimensions of the chin. the researchers then coded their own software that could adjust the 3D head models to optimally correspond to the detection points on the face.

using the research, princeton computer science undergraduates brian mcswiggen and john morone have built an online demonstration of the new portrait manipulation method at the project’s web page, where you can find a host of additional information about the project and upload your own selfie to the software. 

image courtesy of princeton university school of engineering and applied science 

‘although it is the age of the selfie, many people are unaware of how much these self-portraits do not really look like the person being photographed because the camera is way too close,’ said fried, lead developer of the new method and a Ph.D. candidate in the department of computer science at princeton university. ‘now that people can edit so many aspects of a photo right on their phones, we wanted to provide a quick way to edit faces that maintains realism.’

image courtesy of princeton university school of engineering and applied science