Software makes selfies look as if they were taken with a 200mm lens

If you hate the way you look in selfies, here’s some good news for you.

Firstly you are not alone. Big noses, squashed ears and weak chins make selfies looks less attractive (maybe this is why duck face is so common). Secondly, this may change as researchers at Princeton University developed an algorithm to convert selfies into long lens portraits (and vice versa).

Their method uses an automated mesh places on a photo, which calculates the face warp (and then adjusts it).

The obvious use is to unsquash selfies, but I guess you can use the opposite flow if you want to make a high end camera photo look like a selfie.

The research was made partially by Adobe Research so it would not be surprising to see this feature proliferate into a future version of Photoshop. Or into the next generation of smartphone.

If you don’t trust the video you can try the software yourself on its demo page. Here is my try (I tested the look around feature, rather than the make me pretty feature). It’s pretty awesome how this software can make you say yes and no:

[Perspective-aware Manipulation of Portrait Photos | Princeton]