Forensic Photoshoping

Excellent. A re-enactment has its own value -- as long as it's known as that.

I've seen how these death mask photos are made and the are very good in thier own right.
But as always a note or comment along with a link showing the ref should tell others that it was made from a death mask.
The one they did for Shakespeare was great (Discovery Channel) but they pointed out that there was no way to be sure that the death mask itself was that of Shakespeare. Yes, people counterfeit death masks too!
What a world we live in.

They are skilled these artists and as people are interested in historical persons they can make a fairly good copy of reality. But as they found in a Kings grave i Stockholm a couple of months ago: The burried king was not the king they had thought. They had som DNA and could compare.

The willingness to make history more "alive" to todays audience have made the historians make "wax cabinet"-dolls from old skeletons from viking time and even later as for the ships Vasa and Kronan found in the Baltic sea where they have been since ≈1650. The only thing we can say for sure is "The atmosphere in the museum becomes more alive and the era more understandable". We don't know the eye-, hair- or skincolour. The scandinavians is supposed to have been very blond with blue eyes. But we don't know.

There is soma death maska made from the corps of some kings and e.g. muscian Carl Michael Bellman. They are probably mor true than many portraits, which made the kings taller, more beautiful, hero alike etc.