HeadshotDB

Open reference data on professional headshots from HeadshotDB (DIY Headshots): what 6,615 professionals across 6 professions wear and use in their directory headshots, official profile photo requirements by platform with source quotes, US search trends for headshot queries, and a face-recognition likeness test of AI image models.

Source: diyheadshots.com/data. Each file is a copy of the site's download, built 2026-10-21.

Files

File	What it is	Page
headshot-census.csv / .json	The Headshot Census: setting, backdrop colour, clothing, colour, expression, glasses, framing, pose and capture, per profession (therapists 989, lawyers 1171, realtors 762, doctors 865, nursing faculty 372, professors 2456). Totals only.	/headshot-census
photo-specs.csv / .json	Official profile photo sizes, file limits and formats by platform, each with the official wording and URL.	/photo-specs
headshot-search-trends.json	Monthly US Google search volume for headshot queries since October 2018, seasonal indexes by profession.	/headshot-search-trends
ai-headshot-likeness-test.json	8 image models turning 12 selfies of fictional people into headshots, scored with face recognition (SFace), skin colour shift and AI-judge ranks.	/ai-headshot-likeness-test

Method and privacy

• Census: Public professional directory listings, read profession by profession; each profile photo labelled for presentation only (setting, clothing, colour, expression, framing, pose, capture) by an AI vision model. Only totals are kept. Aggregates only. No names, photos, links or face data were stored.
• Likeness test: Fictional people, AI-generated from text descriptions; no real person's face was used.
• Photo specs: quoted only from the organisation that sets each rule.

Licence and citation

CC BY 4.0. Please credit "HeadshotDB, DIY Headshots" and link to the page the data came from.

@misc{headshotdb2026,
  author = {{DIY Headshots}},
  title = {HeadshotDB: open reference data on professional headshots},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://diyheadshots.com/data},
  doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23540000},
  note = {Version 2026.10.21. CC BY 4.0}
}