The Science Of Beauty: New Computer Software Calculates The "Ideal Face"

The New York Times today has a story on a new computer program designed to improve the attractiveness of any given face.

According to the Times:

Scientists...applied an algorithm involving 234 measurements between facial features, including the distances between lips and chin, the forehead and the eyes, or between the eyes.

Essentially, they trained a computer to determine, for each individual face, the most attractive set of distances and then choose the ideal closest to the original face. Unlike other research with formulas for facial attractiveness, this program does not produce one ideal for a feature, say a certain eye width or chin length.

While this certainly raises some uncomfortable questions about "conventional" beauty, the software developer, Tommer Lyvand, says "the goal was not to argue that the altered faces are more beautiful than the originals," but to "tackle the challenge of altering a face according to agreed-upon standards of attractiveness," while still leaving the face completely recognizable.

It's also worth mentioning that the program was created using information based on photographs of white faces, and that "researchers have not yet created a program that would be designed with what they call a beauty estimator for nonwhite racial and ethnic groups."

The program itself has some interesting results:

When Mr. Leyvand put a photograph of Brigitte Bardot through his program, her full and puckered lips were deflated, and the world-famous beauty seemed less striking -- less like herself.

(By contrast, the before and after shots of the actor James Franco were almost indistinguishable, suggesting his classically handsome face is already pretty perfect.)

Click here to read the whole article..

-or-

Click here to view a before and after slideshow - including Michael Cera, Woody Allen, and James Franco.

What do you think? Who looked better? Who looked worse? What effect do you think this will have, if any, on today's standards of beauty and the beauty industry as a whole?

Comments

[The Psychiatric Ward]

Am I the only person who wants to puke at the mere mention of software like this?
I, for one, find society incredibly and utterly pathetic to have to turn to crappy software like this for a so- called 'perfect face'.
This is why our society can be utterly disgusting.
We try to make beauty something that's mass- produced by a machine.

[NoSillyName]

I must be crazy of need my eyes checked; those "after" pictures are not as attractive as the "before" pics. The altered ones do not look "perfect" to me in any way.

Brando looks worse in the after pic, as do the others IMO.

Why would that software "deflate" BB's lips? That is in no way perfect.

Back to the drawing board, guys.

[alieninvader]

For the most part, I liked the before pictures better. Perfection might make someone beautiful, but imperfections make someone attractive.

[KarateKid]

Bardot needed no enhancements. Hey young folks, there was a story about Bardot and a pic of her at age 74. Well, this is how she looked when she was young.

[NoSillyName]

I was just a child in 1956, but old enough to notice all the hype about BB's film debut in Roger Vadim's "And God Created Woman".

BB and MM, both young, beautiful and known by their initials. Take that all you "first name only" celebs of today. Those two only had initials!

[DCato]

I'm reminded of a comment by Truman Capote - "Babe Paley had only one flaw: she was perfect. Other than that, she was perfect".

It is exactly in the imperfections that we find attractiveness. Human beings are flawed creatures. The very idea of an "ideal face" is a cold, inhuman thing. This program creates production-line beauty and that can never be truly attractive.

[missviv]

DCato, you summed my thoughts up perfectly.

[Elrancho]

Me too. Utter, inconsequential rubbish. Whoever came up with the idea for this project should be ashamed of themselves. (and you just know their idea of a 'perfect' face is going to be white with blue eyes and blond hair....) Idiots.