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Perspective Distortions: Why Normal Cameras Make Faces Look Weird | Aaron Hertzmann’s blog

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Have you ever noticed how peoples’ faces look stretched in group selfies?

Have you ever noticed how peoples’ faces look stretched in group selfies? Photo by Shih et al. For comparison, here’s a more-normal looking picture of the fellow in the lower-right: It’s not a flaw in the camera or the lenses—they’re operating the way as designed. These phenomena come from the use of linear perspective to make pictures. Linear perspective comes from the Italian Renaissance—and, for the 500 years since then, people have been using it to make pictures, and puzzling over the surprising effects it creates. This post explains some of these stretched and misleading faces. The same p

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