I swear all the post-processing iPhones do add 10 years to your face. It’ll look totally normal in the viewfinder, but once you take the picture, it just starts making up wrinkles.
this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2026
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Right?? Imperfections I don’t see when looking at a mirror suddenly appear on a selfie.
I wonder if the viewfinder shows a slightly lower resolution/quality and the picture is taken in higher quality, showing a bit more detail. Not sure how it works.
The viewfinder is (usually) just the raw video stream from one of the cameras in your phone.
When you take the picture, your phone captures an image with multiple cameras (if your phone has them), composits them together, and applies a bunch of black-box post-processing to the image. This step is usually a trade secret as phone makers try to compete for the “best camera”.
After that, it applies any extra user-set filters you may have.
IMO, they’ve taken the processing way too far in the race to make “better” pictures. The newest phones often run the image through a small ML model that tries to extrapolate detail, and personally I think it looks bad.
Marques Brownlee actually did a video about this, and I remember thinking, “Okay, so I’m not crazy!”
I really wish my camera had a “do less” setting.
I think most mobile phone cameras stack multiple exposures from different lenses when taking a , to improve the clarity and do some hdr stuff.
If you want your mind blown, it's because of lenses.
Most cameras show you a version of yourself that others are not actually seeing when they look at you.
And mirrors aren't the same either.. You look better in higher quality mirrors.
then how do I find myself?
a reflection pool?
Ask your momma, she thinks you're handsome
I've always wonders exactly why this is.
The difference is stark.
I've done enough photography to know that isn't the only difference. Although it certainly plays a role
Which one is closer to the truth?
No camera can capture what humans can see. Human eyes have a roughly 22mm focal length but see closer to what a camera with a 55mm length sees. This, of course, also varies from person to person and is also effected by the fact that you mostly use two at once and average them.
Make cameras out of human eyeballs, got it.
But then there's also the post-processing (or rather lossy compression) in the two neuronal layers around the eyeball.
Focal length equivalent assumes a 35mm sensor or film format. 50mm on 35mm is basically the human range of view (although human eyes are interesting in that our resolution is so much sharper in the middle of the sensor than on the edges, and there's significant variation between individuals.
But the important part is that it isn't actually focal length that makes the effect. It's distance from the camera. If you do a dolly zoom with a fixed focal length lens, where you still push or pull the camera towards or away from a subject, you can still see this effect on the nose and the ears.
A flat, two dimensional representation of a three dimensional object will always have distortion. The effect we see here is about distortion that changes with camera distance, and the change itself is what makes things feel strange.
Doesn't our brain see a 2d-picture anyway? Due to the retina being one layer of photosensitive cells?
yours might? mine only really transitions to 2d after a few miles.
my profession involves being hyper-aware of the five feet immediately around me though. i need to know where things are with my eyes closed or i'll drop something expensive.
The brain constructs 3d from perspective and shadows.
and sound and sensory stimuli we get, yes. Are we talking about the same thing or different things?
My point: we see in 2d. But interpret the picture as 3d.
you see in 2d. i have both my eyes still.
You too see in 2d:
Depth perception allows us to see the world in three dimensions and to judge the distance and movement between objects and ourselves. Light rays enter the pupil and land on the retina, forming two-dimensional images. The brain processes these images and interprets them as a three-dimensional representation of the world around us.
https://www.allaboutvision.com/eye-care/eye-anatomy/depth-perception/
No camera can capture what humans can see.
Lenses can't. Cameras can, I think.
They have post-processing capabilities in addition to lenses.
No… there is literally not a camera in existence that can reproduce exactly what a human sees.
Yeah thankfully, cause a human eye sees a thumb sized spot in high definition, and everything else is a smudge until you move the eyeball to it.
What do you mean? For my eye current digital photos are very close already.
Also, I see you introduced "exactly" in addition to your previous comment.
And I, in my original comment, used "closer".
They are all 'the truth'.
... from a certain point of view.
Your brain hallucinates two images together into one, after flipping them upside down, and is constantly adding details that are not actually there and also removing some details that are.
But yes atomicbocks has a good answer if 'the truth' means 'probably what most other humans percieve most of the time, maybe'.
We have two eyes, so probably the widest shot
Your face isn't perfectly symmetrical, so when you see it in a picture vs a mirror it looks off.
There's also some kind of psychology with mirrors on top of (including?) the symmetry thing. You see your reflection every day in the same mirror, in the same lighting, from the same angle and distance, and you grow used to it so you think you look really really good. And you do! But then it's jarring to see yourself differently.
Along with the other reasons given, seeing something in motion vs a static image.
Two eyes versus one lense
And others will think you look good in photos and not good in a mirror.
It is because you only mainly see yourself in a mirror, which is mirrored.
So if you see yourself in a photo (not mirrored), you don't see yourself how you normally see yourself. So it looks weird.
Mirror your photos, and you will look good. But others will think you look weird.
My DSi's camera is the only one that's remotely flattering 😓
Just mark this account as a Reddit repost bot account.
Lemmy is a link aggregator taking content is the entire design
Man. I've seen losers but you are special nutcase
My momma always said I was special.
She also said if I couldn't say anything nice not to say anything and that would be good advice for you I think.
Some of us aren't photogenic. Even as a kid, my mom would tell me I was the cutest thing ever, but I look back on those childhood photos and I'm thinking I looked like a gargoyle.
Yep, that's the only possibility here for why your mom thinks you were a cute baby.
Seeing yourself mirrored with no lens distortion, vs seeing yourself possibly unmirrored with lots of lens distortion and from an angle you don't typically view yourself.
Lens distortion sure but I find flipping the image to not be mirrored makes the effect worse for me
The lighting can have such a massive effect too. I swear certain wavelengths end up highligting my face in such weird ways.
maybe if michael dressed a little snappier