Why am I so much uglier in the photo than in the mirror?

"Every time I look at the photos, I wonder who this ugly fat man is!" "The photo on the second-generation ID card is the one I look most pleasing to the eye …" If you have any questions about the above example, the following long question and answer from Reddit user abstractfactory may help you gain something ... There are many reasons, such as: the crux: when you look in the mirror, the image is still three-dimensional, because you are still looking with your eyes. When taking a picture, the image becomes flat, which is completely different from looking in the mirror. In addition, due to the focal length and lens distance, geometric distortion (distortion) may occur. For example, if the focal length is short and the camera is close to people, there will be an effect similar to a fisheye lens. If it's a head photo, it's easy to enlarge the nose and forehead. Solution: If you want to take good photos, photographers should stay away from you, or they can take close shots, preferring to take close shots. Although this will make the camera more funny-so it's best to put the camera on a hard surface or fix it. Crux: Most people have poor light when taking pictures. In real life, when you look at something, you will automatically "brainstorm" various effects caused by ambient lighting, but when you look at a photo, the lighting conditions in the photo have no environmental reference, so it doesn't look as good as in reality, such as skin color. Solution: If you want to take a good photo, please ensure the ideal light. The most suitable lighting is outdoors. At sunrise or sunset, the sunny side is facing your face. It is best to sit in front of a light-colored object (such as an open book or a white table), so that the reflected light will soften the shadow on your face. If the shadow is too thick, wrinkles, acne and other defects will become obvious. So professional photographers always use whiteboards when taking pictures of models. Crux: Many photos were taken with the flash of the camera. Generally speaking, this will make you look like a stone: the skin will look reflective/greasy, and the small protrusions on your face will become "relief" to pull out long shadows. Another problem is that the color temperature of camera flash is colder than that of tungsten lamp or even sunlight, and people's skin is usually not much better in cold light. Solution: Regular photographers will choose to use a diffuser or let the flash hit the plane near the subject, but they can't directly use the flash on the camera. If there is no corresponding equipment, please follow what I said before to find a suitable lighting environment. The crux of the matter: the distance between you and the mirror in the mirror is twice that between you and the mirror. If you think about the camera distance with the same thinking when taking pictures, there will definitely be many unsatisfactory details, because you are very close. Solution: Please take a low-resolution photo, please take it farther away, or slightly out of focus (yes, you read it correctly: before Photoshop appeared, photo and film photographers sometimes covered the lens with nylon stockings, or painted vaseline on the lens to blur the focus). Of course, the best thing is to use light to soften the details, as mentioned earlier. Crux: Many people will put on a "professional smile" or a strange expression when taking pictures, and facial muscles will make their faces look unnatural. Solution: Come on, just relax. Even if you really want to put on a smile, please put on a real smile: a natural smile will affect the whole face and wrinkle the corners of your eyes, and only a glib smile will always be fake. Please learn to exercise the muscles of your whole face, or you will secretly come up with something funny. Crux: In real life, your brain will automatically combine the ever-changing facial expressions of others into an "average" face, so in your mind, someone's face is actually a processed and "neutral" face. However, the camera often captures this moment in less than a few tenths of a second, and the facial expression captured at this time will almost certainly deviate from the previous average impression. This is why so many photos of so-called celebrities are ugly: without him, we automatically ignore those "out of shape" and "gaffes" that are actually very frequent in coherent observation. Solution: Please choose a camera with fast continuous shooting function (ordinary cameras are generally ok, but the camera of mobile phone is ridiculously slow), and always take a lot of pictures in succession. If one of the photos is not much different from the "average expression", the possibility will be greatly improved. If you only take one photo, you will probably get an ugly one. Solution: Look at less photos of stars. (Look at Feng Jie? Bottom line: Taking pictures is a very complicated matter, which is different from looking at it with the naked eye. Turn off the flash, stay away from it and press the shutter several times. Use a camera instead of a mobile phone.