Why do blemishes and acne look worse in pictures than irl?
In: Technology
There are two main reasons. The first is the color gamut differences because of the lighting and camera sensor, versus what we naturally see with our eyes. Our eyes are sensitive to a wider range of colors than what a typical camera sensor can capture, as well as what a typical computer or phone screen can produce. This is why pictures of sunsets don’t look as vibrant as actual sunsets, unless the photo is manipulated to better capture the impression. There can also be differences in automatic color balance by the camera that enhance red/yellow tones more than our brain does.
The second reason is that when you look at someone, you are looking from at least a reasonable distance, and small features are blurry and ignored. But a camera can focus quite well at high resolution across the whole frame (unlike our eyes, which only see a little bit of detail at once). Then we look at the photo on a screen very close to our face, and can actually make out more detail (more imperfections) than we’d see normally.
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