Patent ID: 8265351

Claim:
A method for performing a virtual facelift to facilitate a visualization of the outcome of a facial aesthetics operation, comprising: (a) detecting a face in a digital image, if the location of the face in the digital image has not already been established; (b) detecting locations of one or more features in regions of interest in the face in the digital image, said one or more features including one or more facial features of interest and one or more other facial features, so that the one or more facial features of interest are located and the one or more other facial features are located based on proximity to the one or more facial features of interest; (c) isolating the one or more features in the regions of interest in the face in the digital image, through detection of deviation from skin color by determining gradient magnitude; (d) altering select areas of the face in the digital image to produce one or more altered areas, said alteration incorporating a combination of the following: resizing; stretching; and filtering; and (e) the one or more features in the face in the digital image with the one or more altered areas to define a modified digital image.