Why you look better in the mirror than in photos
You are not unphotogenic. Two things are going on: you have memorised a flipped version of your own face, and the camera was probably too close. Both are fixable.
Read the articleProfile photos, plainly explained.
Short, practical pieces on profile photos: what a headshot has to do, how to shoot one worth processing, and where your face goes when you upload it. Every claim is tested on our own photos.
Are AI headshots OK for LinkedIn?
5 min The honest answer is that it depends on what the tool did to your face. Redrawing you is a problem. Relighting and cropping the photo you actually took is not.
LinkedIn profile photo size, and what actually gets cropped
5 min The limits are 400x400 to 7680x4320 pixels, under 8MB, PNG or JPG. The more useful part is what LinkedIn does to your photo after you upload it.
What to wear for a headshot, and the two rules that matter
5 min Most advice here is taste dressed up as rules. Only two things reliably decide whether clothing helps or hurts: whether it separates you from the background, and whether it competes with your face.
Should you smile in a professional headshot?
5 min Usually yes, and the reason has nothing to do with looking friendly. A held smile is what goes wrong, not smiling itself. Here is how to get one that looks like you.
How to take your own headshot with nobody else there
5 min No photographer, no assistant, no second pair of hands. A timer, something to prop the phone on, and about fifteen minutes is genuinely enough.
How to remove the background from a photo without uploading it
5 min Background removal runs perfectly well inside a browser tab now, which means your photo never has to reach anyone's server. Here is how it works and how to check the claim.
Why AI headshots look slightly off, and which tells are fixable
5 min People can usually sense a generated portrait without being able to say why. The tells are specific, and some come from ordinary retouching pushed too far rather than from generation.
How to photograph a colleague for their headshot
5 min Someone has handed you their phone and asked you to take their work photo. Here is the ten-minute version, including the part most people get wrong: what to say.
How to blur the background of a photo you already took
5 min Real background blur comes from the lens and cannot be added later. What software does instead is a convincing imitation, and knowing the difference tells you when it will look wrong.