A beauty filter is a

filter Filter, filtering or filters may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming * Filter (software), a computer program to process a data stream * Filter (video), a software component tha ...

applied to still photographs, or to video in real time, to enhance the

physical attractiveness Physical attractiveness is the degree to which a person's physical features are considered aesthetically pleasing or beautiful. The term often implies sexual attractiveness or desirability, but can also be distinct from either. There are many ...

of the subject. Typical effects of such filters include smoothing skin texture and modifying the proportions of facial features, for example enlarging the eyes or narrowing the nose. Filters may be included as a built-in feature of

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

apps such as

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

Snapchat Snapchat is an American multimedia instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are usually only available for a short time before the ...

, or implemented through standalone applications such as

Facetune Facetune is a photo editing application used to edit, enhance, and retouch photos on a user's iOS or Android device created by Lightricks. The app is often used for portrait and selfie editing. The app implements a number of beauty filters ...

. Critics have raised concerns that the widespread use of such filters on social media may lead to negative body image, particularly among girls.

Background

The manipulation of photos to enhance attractiveness has long been possible using software such as

Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Microsoft Windows, Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas Knoll, Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the indu ...

and, before that, analogue techniques such as

airbrushing An airbrush is a small, Pneumatics, air-operated tool that Atomizer nozzle, atomizes and sprays various media, most often paint but also ink and dye, and Foundation (cosmetics), foundation. Spray painting developed from the airbrush and is c ...

. However, such tools required considerable technical and artistic skill, and so their use was mostly limited to professional contexts, such as magazines or advertisements. By contrast, filters work in an automated fashion through the use of complex algorithms, requiring little or no input from the user. This ease of use, in combination with the increase in processing power of smartphones, and the rise of social media and

selfie A selfie () is a self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a digital camera or smartphone, which may be held in the hand or supported by a selfie stick. Selfies are often shared on social media, via social networking services such as ...

culture, have led to photographic manipulation occurring on a much wider scale than ever before. One of the earliest examples of a content-aware digital photographic filter is red-eye reduction.

Effects

Typical changes applied by beauty filters include: * Smoothing skin texture; minimizing fine lines and blemishes * Erasing under-eye bags * Erasing naso-labial lines ("laugh lines") * Application of virtual makeup, such as lipstick or eyeshadow * Slimming the face; erasing

double chin The chin is the forward pointed part of the anterior mandible ( mental region) below the lower lip. A fully developed human skull has a chin of between 0.7 cm and 1.1 cm. Evolution The presence of a well-developed chin is considered to be one ...

s * Enlarging the eyes * Whitening teeth * Narrowing the nose * Increasing fullness of the lips Beauty filters most frequently target the face, though in some cases they may affect other body parts. For example, the app "Retouch Me" was reported to have a feature which allows users to superimpose visible abdominal muscles (a " six pack") onto photos featuring the subject's bare stomach.

Psychological effects

Some commentators have expressed concern that beauty filters may create unrealistic beauty standards, particularly among girls, and contribute to rates of

body dysmorphic disorder Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), occasionally still called dysmorphophobia, is a mental disorder characterized by the obsessive idea that some aspect of one's own body part or appearance is severely flawed and therefore warrants exceptional meas ...

. A correlation has been established between negative body image and the use of beautifying filters, though the direction of causation is unknown. The inability to discern whether a particular image has been filtered is thought to exacerbate their negative psychological effects. Policymakers have advocated for social networks to disclose the use of filters; TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat all label filtered photos and videos with the name of the filter applied.

Cosmetic procedures

Filters have been implicated in greater demand for cosmetic surgery and injections. The term "Snapchat dysmorphia" was coined by cosmetic doctor

Tijion Esho Tijion Esho is a British doctor known for aesthetic medicine and non-surgical procedures. He is the founder of the ESHO Clinic. He is the resident cosmetic doctor on the E4 reality show ''Body Fixers''. Early and personal life Esho was bor ...

to describe patients who presented to plastic surgeons seeking procedures to mimic the effects of filters, such as a narrowed nose, enlarged eyes, fuller lips, and smoothed skin. Instagram previously hosted a number of third-party filters which explicitly simulated the effects of cosmetic procedures, as well as a filter, "FixMe", which allowed users to annotate their face with areas for surgical improvement, as a plastic surgeon might do with a marker. After public controversy around these filters, Facebook banned them in October 2019, along with all "distortion" filters, which altered the proportions of the face. In August 2020, Facebook re-allowed distortion filters, but continued to ban filters which "directly promote cosmetic surgery". Facial distortion filters are also unlisted in the app's "Effects Gallery", which shows the most popular filters at the time.

Apps

Beauty filters are available as a built-in feature of many social media apps, most notably Instagram, Snapchat, and

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...

. In the case of Instagram and Snapchat, most filters are created by third-party developers rather than the app developers themselves. The video-conferencing app

Zoom Zoom may refer to: Technology Computing * Zoom (software), videoconferencing application * Page zooming, the ability to magnify or shrink a portion of a page on a computer display * Zooming user interface, a graphical interface allowing for image ...

includes a "Touch-up My Appearance" filter which smooths blemishes and under-eye bags. Beautifying effects may be bundled as part of other, more whimsical

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be de ...

filters, such as Instagram and Snapchat filters which give the user puppy ears or a flower crown. Beauty filters may also be applied using standalone "beauty apps". One of the most popular such apps is

. In 2017, Facetune was the most popular paid app on the Apple App Store. As of 2019, the paid app, and the free counterpart, Facetune2, had more than 55 million users between them.

FaceApp FaceApp is a photo and video editing application for iOS and Android developed by FaceApp Technology Limited, a company based in Cyprus. The app generates highly realistic transformations of human faces in photographs by using neural networks ...

is another image editing app which uses deep learning algorithms. Extreme use of the app's beauty filters was the subject of the "

Yassification ''Yas'' is a playful or non-serious slang term equivalent to the excited or celebratory use of the interjection "yes!", carrying LGBT or queer cultural associations. ''Yas'' was added to Oxford Dictionaries in 2017 and defined as a form of excl ...

" Internet meme, in which photos are filtered to hyper-glamorour extremes to humorous effect. Filters are most commonly applied to self-taken portraits ("

s"). The close distance from which such photos are taken may create undesirable distortions, such as increasing the perceived size of the nose.

References

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