No one ever looks worse than they do in a photograph that’s featured in a campaign television ad.

Actually no one ever looks that bad in reality.

But political manipulators can do all manner of nasty tricks with modern digital tools.

A few mouse clicks can transform a genial smile into a malevolent grimace.

A generally healthy skin tone becomes a cadaverous chalky gray.

And if the photo extends below the chin, even a svelte candidate will appear to spend rather more time in the company of cheeseburgers than treadmills.

Attack ads, as they are so aptly known, have been thick on the televised landscape over the past several weeks.

This onslaught of exaggeration and innuendo, as reliable every other autumn as the carpet of crunching leaves underfoot, will end soon.

And quite abruptly, since there is no purpose in spending money to castigate a candidate once the polls have closed.

(Satisfying as I’m sure that would be to some.)

I am, as I suspect most of us are, by turns amused and annoyed by this proliferation as I careen among the channels.

After seeing the same spot during six straight intermissions in a college football game or compelling documentary, I might pine for a pitch extolling the virtues of a miraculous pharmaceutical or a malt beverage that by some magical osmosis will, as soon as I pop the top, put me poolside with several scantily clad vixens.

The usual promotional fare, in other words.

But as we lurch toward the election those ads have all but disappeared, replaced by ones intended to guide our pens toward particular bubbles on our ballots.

There are two main types, of course — the pro and the con (the latter quite literally, if the candidate in question has an actual conviction on record).

Of the two, I find the latter more interesting.

Criticism, by its nature, tends to be more compelling than advocacy.

The ads promoting someone’s candidacy are too predictable. We know we’ll see the candidate out among the people, ideally standing in at least one field and one factory, chatting with constituents who appear mesmerized by the politician’s august presence.

These are boring.

Attack ads usually follow a script, too. But campaigns are more likely to indulge in amusing hyperbole when they’re impugning, rather than glorifying, a candidate.

I decided this year to enliven the banality by trying to figure out, when I see the first photo, whether the ad is for or against the candidate shown.

This is easier than I expected, rather like trying to guess a song based not on a few notes but an entire verse or chorus.

But the exercise has at least been on occasion entertaining, and mainly because of the pictures.

I wonder which of the campaign’s employees were given the assignment to find the opponent’s least flattering photos — or at least the images most amenable to digital tinkering.

A grim task, certainly, but I suppose it has its attractions.

I imagine the thrill of coming across a photo that captures an otherwise pleasant-looking person appearing haggard, or a normally smiling candidate caught in a frown that, put in the proper context, can seem downright sinister.

How candidates look — or can be made to look — has long since been a potentially important factor.

Perhaps the most famous example was the first televised debate between presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in September 1960.

Nixon, who decided to wear only light makeup, frequently dabbed at his sweaty face and glanced often at a clock that viewers couldn’t see.

He appeared shifty and uncomfortable — less presidential than Kennedy, who of course won.

Political operators recognized how potent appearance could be, and eventually how easily manipulated. There is a direct link between the Nixon-Kennedy debate and the attack ads that dominate modern campaigns.

I suspect that photos in attack ads sometimes have the opposite of their intended effect on the electorate, though.

A voter who sees two ads, one with a photo or video of a smiling, reasonably attractive candidate, and another that shows the same person looking like the subject of a multi-state manhunt, might come away not confused but annoyed.

Or at least sympathetic to the candidate.

A person needn’t be a politician, after all, to understand how it would feel to have your face contorted into something you hardly recognize yourself.