A Guide on how to spot Before and After HT photos tricks and manipulation

[Vincent777]

Guide on how to spot Before and After HT photos tricks and manipulation
So I've noticed a lot of HT Doctors provide Before and After photos which are not consistent in many ways. When I've just started looking for a HT Doctor a year ago I didn't know these things but now with my personal experience I can safely say A LOT of HT doctors use some kind of tricks when presenting Before and After HT photos. Now I realize that after photos are sometimes taken by patients who are not skilled in taking photos but still, they should only provide good photos and in some cases it's OBVIOUS that they are using small tricks and manipulations to fake a better result than they really have.

The idea of this thread is to be an open thread where everyone can share these small or large before and after tricks and manipulations that they observed or experienced and we can help each other to spot them.

I feel morally obliged to share this with new hair loss sufferers so they wouldn't fall for these trick marketing tactics that many clinics and doctors use like I did when I was just starting out.


Here are my observations:

1st thing is the obvious one, the lighting is almost always more prominent in the Before photo than in the After one. They tend to use the flash on the Before photos and then on the After photos I've seen some use the daylight that looks like it's coming through the window of the room. I've seen some with only half of the head is lighten.

2nd one is the wet hair on the Before photos versus the dry hair on the After ones. Now knowing with my current hair loss diffuse situation how my hair looks wet and dry I could easily post wet pictures of my hair as Before and then post After photos of my dry hair and the difference would seem like night and day. My hair looks terrible when it's wet but then when it's dry because I naturally have thick curls if combed right you almost can't spot the hair loss at all.

3rd one is the angle. The after photos can be taken in such an angle to look much better than it really is. This combined with the bad lighting can make it look much better than it really is.

4th is particularly annoying and that's the hairstyle on the after photos that covers the operating part with a comb over so you can't really see what's going on. Again like I said, this combined with wet hair and without a flash can make all the difference in the world.

5th is Finasteride. Many of the patients don't use finasteride and are put on the finasteride before HT and then their native hair thickens considerably so the result is much, much better than it would be without finateride but since many Doctors don't put that information with the photo this can be misleading to the viewer. It would lead you to think the hair looks much better only because of HT. Actually even if they provide the information that the patient is put on finasteride with the photos, you still cannot be sure how much it's the effect of the ht and how much is finasteride's doing. I've seen some Norwood 5 to 6 ressurections to Nowrood 2 only with Propecia and Minoxidil alone. And some doctors won't even operate you without you using finasteride.

6th are the hair thickening products and topikk. My hair looks so thick when I've apply Rogaine foam on my hairline that you cannot spot hair thickening even under the strong light. But when I wash it with Nizoral it's so flat that the thinning is obvious. So this should be taken into consideration. As well as clean or oily hair.

Please restrain yourself from hateful comments and emotional ones that provide no information on this topic whatsoever. Please let's keep this concise and to the point. We are here to help each other.

[Herbaliser]

Hi Vincent,
It´s obvious for me also what you are mentioning, but sadly people are in denial since it´s hair loss, and it´s a oblivious denial for them.

Hope you will awaken some at least to reality.
Nice post.

[Driver]

I must say it is amazing how much lighting and camera angles can make things look different. I have noticed this many times, both looking at pics and even looking at different photos of myself. The changes these things can make are truly remarkable.