An appeal estimation system for estimating a personal appeal of a candidate individual to an observer including a digital image capture device and a soft-copy display. The system further includes a data processing system configured to implement the steps of designating a set of proxy individuals; providing one or more digital images for each proxy individual; determining personal appeal values of each proxy individual to the observer; capturing one or more digital images of the candidate individual using the digital image capture device; determining image similarity metrics between the digital images for the candidate individual and each proxy individual; determining similarity values between the candidate individual and each proxy individual responsive to the determined image similarity metrics; estimating the personal appeal of the candidate individual to the observer by combining the personal appeal values for the proxy individuals; and displaying an indication of the estimated personal appeal on the soft-copy display.