THE JAPAN NEWS



 

The term “Cinderella technology” (see below) refers to technology that alters women’s looks to be more attractive appearance.

One especially popular technology automatically processes women’s photos of themselves to make their eyes larger or their faces smaller than in reality. However, concepts of beauty have differed widely over the years.

Graphic processing

Bright eyes. Slightly rosy cheeks. No spots and wrinkles on the skin. A slim jawline. My face in the image had been transformed into one different from my normal appearance.

Furyu Corp. official Ryoko Inagakai, 36, said, “Our purpose is not to make users look like a different person, but to make them look their best in photos.”

Furyu is a Shibuya Ward, Tokyo-based major manufacturer of machines that create photo stickers — called “print seals” in Japan. Inagakai is chief of the planning division of the company’s department for photo sticker machines.

This kind of photo processing is based on computerized facial recognition technology.

According to Prof. Yoichi Sato of the University of Tokyo, 50, an expert on image recognition, the technology is divided into two stages. Initially, the image of a person’s face is extracted from graphic data, separating the portions that show a face from those that do not.

The second stage identifies the position of facial features such as the eyes, nose and mouth. In this stage, data on contrasts between bright and dark are often used, Sato said. Computers place square frames in many parts of an image and search for characteristic contrasts among them.

For example, in the area from eyebrow to eyelid to eye, the technology recognizes dark, bright and dark parts from the top down. The bridge of the nose is recognized as bright, and both sides under the bridge are recognized as dark.

In such computers, images of models are inputted in advance, so that the positions of the features of average human faces are quantified.

Using the contrasts and other data as a reference, the computers alter and move the models of average faces, superimpose them over the face in an image, and detect the positions of each facial feature. When the computers recognize the composition of a face, they can issue instructions for processing the image, such as making the eyes look bigger.

Facial recognition technology is also applied to energy-saving home electric appliances that turn on the power only when people are near, and to automatic vending machines that recommend products depending on customers’ facial expression and age.

Digitalizing ‘beauties’ of the times

Young women in recent years have used “moru” — a verb in Japanese meaning “exaggerate” — to describe actions to make their faces and bodies be closer to their ideal appearance. The noun form is “mori” — exaggeration.

Some women call makeup or false eyelashes “real mori,” and processing photos with photo sticker machines or digital cameras “virtual mori.”

So what types of face images can be seen as having good mori?
Yuka Kubo, 39, a researcher of media environment studies at the University of Tokyo, coined the term “Cinderella technology.” Kubo is researching the digitization of the ideal faces that women want to have.

As the first step, she analyzed pictures of beautiful women from the past, feeding about 150 such images into a computer as graphic data.

They include a wall painting of a group of women inside the Takamatsuzuka Tumulus in Nara Prefecture, and pictures drawn by Yumeji Takehisa, a painter who was active mainly in the Taisho era (1912-1926).

Then Kubo compared the outlines and other factors of the eyes and other facial features of the women in the pictures. This showed they had different characteristics in each of the time periods.

For example, women drawn as beauties from the Asuka period (592-701) to the Heian period (late sixth century to the 12th century) have slit eyes and narrow faces. Beauties in the Edo period (1603-1868) have eyes angled upwards, while in the Taisho era they have eyes that slant downward. In the Showa era (1926-1989) they have big eyes.

Kubo processed images of her own face in accordance with the characteristics of each period. She said she succeeded to a certain degree in reproducing facial images close to those of the different eras’ beautiful women.

But Kubo has not yet been able to determine the characteristics of facial images that are considered to be “well-filled” today.

The standards for an ideal face have always been changing. Partly because of the appearance of the internet, information is now exchanged at faster speeds than before. I assume this is the reason,” Kubo said. It will be interesting to see how the facial images of beautiful women will change from now on.

Objections from men

Young women, mainly high school girls, frequently post processed images of themselves on the internet. Furyu’s Inagaki said, “They enjoy subtle changes and make good use of them.”

However, she said older people sometimes feel the women do too much. At this newspaper, too, some people, mainly men, said the photos of the women were better before they were processed.

■Cinderella technology

Technology to process appearances so that women can make their pictures look more like their ideal. Kubo chose the name from the famous fairy tale character. According to Kubo, Cinderella technologies include computer technologies for facial recognition and image processing, and also cosmetic items such as false eyelashes and pastes to create eyelid folds.Speech