Face Detection Evolves

Let’s say you, like me, are ugly (or as I like to say, homely). Well, help is on the way:

“Tessera Technologies, Inc. announced its new FotoNation FaceEnhance solution, which beautifies captured images of human faces by smoothing lines and blemishes to improve the capabilities of digital still cameras (DSCs), camera phones and other camera-enabled devices.

The FotoNation FaceEnhance solution automatically reduces the appearance of wrinkles and other skin imperfections from human faces in an image, without the need for additional editing with PC software. It can be applied automatically upon image capture, or applied manually in the display setting when viewing an image. The solution can also be used in display devices, such as digital picture frames.”

Expect this to be commercialized in 2009.

This isn’t the first such solution. You see an increasing number of digital cameras with the ability to retouch photos or remove facial blemishes. Still, while the ugly person in me is happy, the philosophical person in me wonders whether this isn’t eroding the “honesty” of photography. I mean, imagine I’m showing a slideshow to my children. Greg circa 1999-2009 isn’t looking so good. Then Greg circa 2009 onward is looking rather decent. Yet the Greg they see in front of them is still, alas, ugly. It’s a recipe for confusion.