The first quality gate of face measurement is not the algorithm — it is the second you press the shutter. The same face, shot two different ways, can land a whole band apart in its ratios. The good news: a qualifying photo takes only five rules, and every rule has a plain reason behind it.
The three pillars of the shot: distance, angle, light
Distance: arm's length or more — better, have someone else shoot
The rule that matters most. A selfie at around thirty centimetres suffers perspective distortion strong enough to inflate the nose-to-face-width ratio by roughly a third — a perfectly proportioned nose photographs as generous, and the Wealth Palace lands in the wrong band before analysis even starts. Stretch to a full arm's length and the distortion collapses; a friend shooting from a metre away, or a selfie stick, does even better. The self-check is simple: your face should not fill the frame.
Angle: straight on, eyes level, head square
The Three Courts are vertical ratios: tipping the chin down stretches the upper zone and squeezes the lower; tipping up does the reverse. Turning the head skews the two cheeks' widths, throwing off symmetry and the five-eye shares together. The correct posture: raise the phone to eye height, lens square to the face, head straight, chin level, eyes looking into the camera. Tools detect and warn about rotation — but one properly squared shot beats three retakes.
Light: even, bright, never from directly above
Light touches two things: the stability of landmark detection, and the complexion metrics behind the Fortune Palace. The ideal is daylight through a window, face toward it — soft, frontal, even, no heavy shadow anywhere. Three lights to avoid: overhead light (it casts false shadows under eyes and nose, bending the silkworm and the nose root alike), strong side light (one cheek brighter than the other, corrupting symmetry), and tinted light (warm-yellow or cool-blue lamps poison the complexion data).
Show the key regions: hairline and ears
Several palaces keep their data under the hair. The Career Palace needs the hairline-to-brow span; the Parents Palace needs the Sun and Moon angles just below the hairline; the ear reading needs to check whether the ears align from brow to nose base. Pin the fringe fully back to expose the true hairline, and tuck long hair behind the ears so both outlines show whole. Skip this step and the affected palaces can only be marked 'data incomplete'.
Condition: bare face, filters off, expression at rest
- Kill beauty modes and filters. Face-slimming rewrites the jaw and outline data outright; skin-smoothing and colour grading poison complexion — to a measuring tool, all of it is false data.
- Prefer a bare face. Contouring and brow makeup shift how outlines and brow shape are read.
- Let the face rest. Raised brows move the Property Palace; a broad grin moves the mouth band. Relax gently, lips naturally closed.
Run the checklist after the shot: face centred and square, hairline and ears visible, light even, filters off, distance sufficient — five passes and the photo qualifies for measurement. Thirty seconds spent staging the shot buys credibility for the entire report: the best-value thirty seconds in the whole process.