AI Headshots: HeadshotPro, TryItOnAI, AISuitUp

My headshot is rather old, and I wanted to see if AI could give me an updated, usable headshot. So here are my results from three separate companies. TL;DR HeadshotPro gave the best quality photos, TryItOnAI was the most accurate to my face, and AISuitUp wasn’t even close. Mind you, I uploaded the SAME self-portraits to all three sites. Finally, I will talk briefly about why I think my photos failed.

HeadshotPro

TryItOn

Using FaceTune to Improve Results

The quality of TryItOn was so bad that I decided to run some of the “better” photos through FaceTune to see if that would clean up the quality. They look slightly better, but they are almost too Glamour shots.

AISuitUp

AISuitUp completely failed the assignment.

Why Focal Length Matters

I took all my photos with my iPhone 14 Pro Max. I used the rear view lens at 1x, approximately 24mm focal length. I knew this might be a problem, but I hoped AI was smart enough to fix the distortion associated with a smaller focal length, but I don’t think any of the sites got it right.

When you get professional headshots, they are usually taken from across the room with a zoom lens. Here’s why. Focal lengths smaller than 75 mm are going to distort the face. Focal lengths between 75-85 mm give the most accurate facial shape without requiring the photographer to be too far away. Lens above 85 mm start having limitations because of how much you have to zoom in, thus reducing light exposure and increasing pixelation. High-end cameras can get non-blurry photos zoomed far in, but the iPhone struggles. How do you get a 75-85 mm focal length on the iPhone 14 Pro Max? Set the rear camera to 2-3x. You’ll never get an appropriate focal length with the camera in your hand. You either need a selfie stick or a tripod to place further away from you to get a better headshot. This is why your selfie photo from your hand always looks bad.

Conclusions

I’m guessing Headshot Pro tried to remove some of the focal length distortions, but the shape of my face looks a little off, but I love their rendition of my hair. Taking my photos at 1x instead of 2-3x like I should have, means you can see my natural imperfections since I don’t use makeup. Those imperfections got amplified with TryItOnAI for some reason, so it makes sense that fixing the photos with FaceTune afterward resulted in probably the most accurate AI headshots. I have NO guess as to what happened with AISuitUp. I might try again later with Headshot Pro and wear glasses to see if they can capture those without destroying my eyes on the AI headshot. I will also take my headshots from 2-3X to remove facial distortions. Have you tried AI photography? What were your results?