Doumax, Robert

Not Really Gaunt

It turns out that the man on the shroud is not gaunt at all. He only looks that way because of a visual perception fluke, an optical illusion of sorts, created by the background appearance of the cloth. Theatrical makeup artists understand exactly how to make someone’s face look thinner by applying darkening makeup from the outer edge of the cheeks to the ears. Portrait artists know how to produce this effect. So do photographers who touch up photographs by dodging and burning. Computer graphics artists do this with software programs like PhotoShop.

That is exactly what happens with the shroud face. But the darkening is not on the face but in the background. Two dark vertical bands on the cloth darken the facial image. In part because the image is transparent or because it is pixilated, the effect works very well.

Barrie Schwortz demonstrated this artificially. Robert Doumax, a expert in computerized image analysis from Bordeaux, France.  Special image enhancement software (Fourier transform filters) can be used to mathematically find these bands and minimize their effect. Notice how this filtering technique seems to change the shape of the face and nose and makes the eyes look more normal. The hair is less forward. It doesn't actually change the shape of the face; it merely minimizes the background noise and allows details to emerge.