Why you look tired in photos (when you're not)

What "tired" looks like to other people

A 2013 study in the journal Sleep photographed the same people after a normal night and after being kept awake, then asked observers what was different. The tired faces were rated as having more hanging eyelids, redder and more swollen eyes, darker circles under the eyes, paler skin, more wrinkles and fine lines, and more drooping at the corners of the mouth.

That list is the whole story of this page. Every item on it can be produced in a photo of a well-rested face by light, angle, expression or processing. So the question is not "why do I look tired?" but "which of these is my photo manufacturing?"

Cause 1: light from above

The eye sockets sit under the brow. Light from a ceiling bulb, a downlighter or the midday sun hits the brow and the forehead and leaves the sockets in shadow — which the viewer reads as dark circles and hooded eyes. The same light puts a shadow under the nose and the lower lip, which the viewer reads as a drooping mouth. Two of the six fatigue cues, from one bulb.

Test it: stand under a ceiling light and take a photo. Then turn it off, face a window, and take another. Compare the eye area. That difference is what most people are calling "I look tired in photos".

Fix: light from in front, at face height or a little above. A window with indoor lights off; outdoors, open shade. Full detail in the lighting guide.

Cause 2: camera below eye level

When the phone is held at chest height and tilted up — which is where it naturally sits when you glance down at it — the lens looks up into the lower eyelids and under the brow. It also puts the underside of the chin and nose closer to the lens, and close-range photos exaggerate whatever is nearest the camera. The result is heavier lower lids, more visible under-eye texture, and a face that seems to be looking down at you.

Fix: lens at eye level or fractionally above. If you are taking a selfie, raise the phone until the lens is at your eye line; better, prop it up and step back.

Cause 3: the held expression

Ask someone to hold a smile for a 10-second timer and watch what happens: the eyes stay fixed, the lids settle, the smile stops reaching the eyes. The face, at rest with a smile pinned on, reads as heavy-lidded and flat — cues four and five.

A candid expression — captured while you are talking, laughing or reacting — engages the muscles around the eyes and lifts the whole face. This is why the same person can look exhausted in a posed photo and bright in a candid one from the same evening.

Fix: never hold a pose for the shot. Set burst mode or have someone shoot continuously while you talk to them. Choose from the in-between frames.

Cause 4: phone processing

Three settings make a rested face look tired:

• Night mode / low-light boost brightens the frame by stacking exposures and sharpening, which brings up under-eye texture and fine lines that the eye would not see.
• Heavy HDR flattens contrast and can grey the skin — cue three, "paler".
• Beauty mode, oddly, can do it too: over-smoothed skin with sharp, untouched eyes makes the eyes look sunken by contrast.

Fix: enough light that none of these engage, and the beauty setting off.

Cause 5: colour and white balance

Warm indoor bulbs, corrected by the phone, can leave the skin sallow; strong blue daylight, uncorrected, can leave it grey. Both read as "pale and unwell". A cool-toned shirt on warm skin, or the reverse, does the same at the collar — see the guides on warm and cool undertones.

Fix: one light source, not mixed; a colour near the face that suits your undertone.

Cause 6: the things that are real

Sometimes the photo is accurate. You did sleep badly, or you are dehydrated, or you had two drinks and the eyes are a little red. The 2013 study's cues are real cues. If you have fixed the light, the height, the expression and the processing and a candid still shows heavy eyes, the honest answer is rest, water and daylight — not a filter. For men, brows that hang low over the eyes can add to the hooded look, and a light tidy-up helps; there is a guide to that.

What we will not do on this site is suggest anything medical for under-eye shadow or skin tone. That is not a photo problem, and this is a photo guide.

The order to fix things

1. Light from the front, not above.
2. Lens at eye level, a metre and a half away.
3. Candid frames from a burst, not a held pose.
4. Processing off, single light source.
5. Colour near the face that suits your skin.

Most people are done at step 2. If you want to know which of these your own photo is suffering from, Auraspire's face scan looks at exactly that: whether the light, the angle or the camera distance is doing it, and how a stranger is likely to read the photo.