Gallery: What Would Your Ideal, Photoshopped Face Look Like? 14 People Find Out
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In a series called [Original Ideal](http://originalideal.com/) photographer [Scott Chasserot](http://scottchasserot.com/) took photos of subjects, made several modifications to the photos to meet standards of beauty and used brainwave scanning tools to see which the subject preferred.
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Chasserot started the experiment by photographing models without makeup, in flat lighting, with neutral facial expressions, to make their faces look as unvarnished as possible. He then retouched the images in increasingly extreme ways.
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Eyes became larger, jaws squarer.
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Modified photos were shown to the models who were outfitted with an electroencephalography (EEG) headset made by [Emotiv](http://emotiv.com/). He then used Emotiv's software to track the subject's interest and excitement as they watched their faces transform.
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With preference data in hand, he created a series of diptychs that showed the model's original portrait next to the portrait that elicited the most positive response.
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"This method can't give a permanent ideal self image, obviously, but it can start to raise questions about the visual culture we live in and how that affects self image," he says.
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The breadth of the population raises many questions. Do certain groups tend to prefer a specific type of modification?
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Do women, who are thought to be the recipient of the most distorted body image signals, prefer the most extreme modifications?
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Chasserot took pains to recruit a wide sample of subjects ranging from elementary school children to senior citizens, from a wide range of ethnic and socioeconomic groups.
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The results are inconclusive. Some models responded enthusiastically to these dramatic virtual makeovers while others picked photos that are just slightly different from their original portraits.
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"This is a pilot study or proof concept for the moment and while it does aim to raise these questions as an art project, it can't answer them as a scientific study, or at least not yet."
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While the series might not lead to changes in Psych 101 textbooks anytime soon, the experience of seeing neural reactions to the photos has caused Chasserot to reconsider his approach to portraiture.
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Another outlier features a young boy with comically large eyes. "I could only speculate, but it's true that I would love to prove that the boy preferred huge eyes because he loves manga cartoons. I'll let you know once I can."
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"Spending hundreds of hours making minute changes to each persons' facial features has made me acutely aware of the faces I see," he says. "I've noticed that whereas I used to step back and try to get the environment in shot to tell the story, now I tend to get closer and focus on lighting features and catching expressions."
