Making a face unrecognizable without blurring or ...

I am creating a primary photo for online personals. The rules are

1.Face must be visible (no blurring, masks, etc.)
2.It must be a true picture (not a drawing, computer image, etc.)

I do not want my photo to be recognizable to people that know me for privacy reasons. And I do not want the photo to be distorted in a way that would make me unappealing.

Does anyone have ideas of what type of modifications I could make to pictures or ideas for photos that meet these criteria?

Do you want the facial features to be visible or can they be darkened so that what you have is basically a silhouette? If the features need to be visible but you don't want the face blurred or distorted, then the only other way I can think of is to alter the dimensions, the position, or distance of the features from each other. For example, you can make the eyes spaced a little farther apart and maybe even slant the eyes a tad. You can widen or narrow the nose and/or the mouth, etc.

I doubt that match would approve a silhoette, perhaps mild darkening, so that the facial features were less visible than in the original picture.

Good ideas. What editing software would work well for such changes?

Photoshop, for one.

Whatever happened to 'Truth in Advertising?'

It's an intersting problem, though.

I just had another idea and it's something even easier to do. Did you know that the two side of your face are not identical? If you mirrored the right side of the face in one picture and mirrored the left side of your face in another picture, these two pictures will not show the same face? And these two mirrored faces won't look like your original face, either, even if all three images came from the same picture. So, what you can do is decide which mirrored side you like better and use that as your "new" face. The more asymmetrical your face, the less the mirrored face will look like you.

Oops! Hold the press! I just noticed I'm in the 5000+ post count realm! Platinum membership, here I come! <<Sorry, I just had to get that out of the way!!! >>>

Often a person will be unrecognizable if you remove their eyeglasses. Or, if they do not normally wear them, add some.

---Bob Gross---

Maybe a black bar across the eyes?

Or even a short one under the nose.

or a beard?


Seriously though, I would leave well alone. Your task is to alter your face so that you aren't immediately recognisable, but not to hide your facial features. There are things you could do like wearing glasses/wig etc, but I would guess anything else is going to make you look slightly odd. Presumbably this would have the opposite effect to the one you are trying to acheive.

Similarly, if someone knows you well enough to identify your undistorted face, aren't they also likely to recognise the 'disguised' face when combined with the personal details you will also be supplying?

I would go with the courage of your convictions and simply use an ordinary photo of your face. That is likely to be far more appealing to viewers and who cares if other people know you use personal ads?

I am a private person. There are only a small handful of people who would recognize the personal details. Many who know and work with me would be surprised by the information. There are far more people who could visually recognize me, but do not know many of the personal details, such as neighbors, people at the gym, etc. I only wish to share the personal details in my profile with those that I may date, not with everyone who has access to a computer.

You should put on a mask. One of those plastic president masks like Kennedy or Reagan.

I suppose it would be okay to use my picture, but your social life will come to a screeching halt if you do. If you're female, you'll especially have a lot of trouble explaining the moustache.

Apologies for the above, but I really don't see how you're going to provide a photograph of your likeness that's not actually your likeness. To do so, it would seem, would put you afoul of their rules, and raises some other ethical questions as to how you're presenting yourself to prospective dates.

Aka23,
I can partly understand the privacy issue, but if you're actually considering online dating with a picture included, then just go with a regular picture. Or maybe make it a bit more artsy with half of your face shadowed or something. I wouldn't go with trying to distort your features too much, and even if you put on glasses/grow a beard, most likely the people who know you will still be able to recognise you. Don't really see a problem if they do. If you don't want people do know you're doing personals, don't go with a picture at all (if they allow you to) and mention picture will be provided if asked for.

I've dated a couple of guys I met online, and one guy didn't wear glasses in his pic. When I met him he did, and to this day I think he looks quite different than without his glasses. So, that might work for you. As long as it's an actual pic of you, that's what matters. Don't mind pics that emphasis your "good side", but I'd rather not expect Brad Pitt and end up with Ozzy Osbourne... Honesty is much better. Just my $0.02

Hi, this is my very frist post and I think the perfect solution is to use the liquified filter and do some changes, that way even if someone recognices the pic it will think that,, Ohh that girl/guy looks like my friend John/jane Doe, but is not cozz my friend has wider mouth and bigger nose etc... If you like this idea letme know and I can doit for you! FOR FREE!!!!!

Manny