What an identity-preserving preview may change
An identity-preserving preview is an AI image of you that changes only reversible things, hair, beard, brows, glasses or clothing, and keeps your face, skin, age and expression as they are. It shows a realistic direction, not a guaranteed result, and LEVEL labels every one as AI-generated.
By the LEVEL team · Updated
What is an identity-preserving preview?
It is an AI-generated image of you with specific reversible changes applied — a new haircut, a beard line, different frames — while everything else stays as photographed. The point is to see a direction on your own face before you commit to it at the barber or the optician. The difference from a beauty filter is the rule underneath: a filter improves the face, and an identity-preserving preview is not allowed to touch it.
What may a preview change?
Only things you could change yourself and undo: hair styling and cut, facial-hair outline and length, brow grooming, glasses, colours worn near the face, clothing, and surface grooming. Each preview names the change it shows, so you know what you are looking at.
See it on your own face before you change anything. LEVEL is an AI face analysis app that never gives a score. Its Preview picks the haircut, beard and glasses that suit you from seven private photos, shows them on your own photo, and gives you the exact words for your barber and optician. $19, once.
What must stay exactly as you are?
Bone structure, the shape of the jaw and chin, the eyes, nose and lips, skin tone and texture, apparent age, ethnicity, body size and the fundamental proportions of the face. Skin is not smoothed and is not retouched. A preview that alters any of these is not showing you with a different haircut; it is showing a different person, and that is a promise no haircut can keep.
How is a preview checked before I see it?
LEVEL checks each preview against your photograph before it is shown. It compares the two for identity similarity, checks that areas outside the requested change stayed the same, and has the image reviewed against the changes it was supposed to make — and only those. A preview that drifts from your likeness, changes something it should not, or looks artificial is regenerated with a targeted correction, and withheld if it still fails. You see fewer previews rather than a doubtful one.
Is a preview a prediction?
No. Even a preview that passes every check shows a plausible direction, not a guaranteed result. Real hair behaves according to its texture, density and growth; a beard fills in at its own rate; and a barber's technique matters. Use a preview to decide what to ask for, then judge the real result in your own photographs a few weeks later.
Why do some AI previews not look like me?
Because image models tend to drift toward an average face. When a model edits a photograph it regenerates far more than the area being changed, and small shifts in the eyes, nose, jaw or skin add up to someone who looks like a relative rather than you. Smoothing skin, slimming the face and brightening the eyes are the most common drifts, and they are exactly what makes a preview flattering and useless. A preview worth acting on changes only the area named, such as the hair or the frames, and is checked against your photograph before it is shown. LEVEL runs a separate identity check on every preview, comparing it with your own photograph, and holds a preview back rather than showing one that no longer looks like you. Each preview is labelled as AI-generated.
Can a preview show a change my hair cannot actually do?
It can, which is why a preview is a direction and not a promise. An image model does not know your hair's density, how it grows at the crown or how it behaves after a day; it draws a plausible version. Good previews reduce the gap by working from what was observed in your photographs, such as texture and visible density, and by keeping to changes a barber can make in one visit. Read a hair preview together with the haircut guide section on hair type, and show both the preview and your barber the real constraint. If your hair is fine or thin at the crown, expect a cut to look a little less full in real life than in a preview: the direction will be right, and the volume is what varies.
How should I use a preview at the barber or optician?
As a reference picture alongside a sentence, not instead of one. Show the preview to set the direction, then say the specifics it cannot carry: how many centimetres on top, which clipper guard on the sides, the frame width in millimetres. LEVEL puts both on one card to show from your phone, the picture labelled as an AI preview of you and the instructions in the words the shop uses. The frame-width section of the glasses guide explains which numbers matter at the optician.
Quick answers
- Can I see a haircut on my own photo before I get it?
- Yes. An identity-preserving preview changes only the hair, beard, brows, glasses or clothing on your own photograph and keeps your face, skin and expression as they are, so you can judge the change, not a different person.
- Is an AI hairstyle preview accurate?
- It shows a realistic direction, not a guarantee. Your hair's density, texture and growth decide the exact result, so treat the preview as a picture to show your barber, not a prediction.
- What should an AI preview never change?
- Your face shape, features, skin tone, apparent age or identity. If a preview changes those, it is showing someone else, and the comparison stops being useful.
Sources
- Wang et al. (2024) — InstantID: zero-shot identity-preserving generation in secondsImage generation methods struggle to keep a person's identity faithful in edits.
- Deng et al., CVPR 2019 — ArcFace: additive angular margin loss for deep face recognitionFace-recognition embeddings measure identity similarity between a preview and the photo.