Composite portrait

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Composite portraiture, or composite photographs, creates an “average” face by superimposing many photos. It was invented by Sir Francis Galton in the 1880s after Herbert Spencer suggested aligning faces by the eyes. Galton used multiple exposures on one plate and found that the resulting composite often looked more balanced and attractive than any individual face, which sparked study of attractiveness and averageness.

In 1883, he told the Royal Society that composites could represent ideal types and ideas, and he discussed using the method to study common human traits, including criminals. He linked averages and correlations and even imagined applying the idea to natural objects. Later, Galton explored mapping features of health, disease, beauty, and criminality with composites; averaging criminal faces tended to produce a composite that looked more respectable, likely because skin blemishes were smoothed out. Since the 1990s, computer graphics have greatly improved this technique.