Does my nose look big in this? Plastic surgeons reassure those worried by selfies

If a penchant for selfies has left you worried about the size of your nose, you might want to consider a selfie-stick.

Researchers say selfie-lovers should be aware that snapping a picture with the camera close to your face distorts the proportions of your features.

“If the camera point is closer to something that projects out, like your nose, it is going to make everything that is closer to that camera look bigger compared to the rest of the face,” said Boris Paskhover, co-author of the study and a facial plastic surgeon at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

To illustrate the point, Paskhover and colleagues combined a simple mathematical model with average values for several facial measurements previously gathered for a large number of men and women in the US.

The results show that a face-on portrait taken from 12 inches away makes the nose’s breadth appear about 30% larger – compared to width of the face – than it really is. In such photos the tip of the nose also appears 7% bigger, compared to the rest of the nose, than it is in reality. By contrast, an image taken five feet away results in facial features appearing in the same proportions as they would in the flesh.

Source: theguardian