1. A method for estimating a personal appeal of a candidate individual to an observer, comprising: a) designating a set of proxy individuals; b) providing one or more digital images for each proxy individual; c) determining personal appeal values of each proxy individual to the observer; d) providing one or more digital images for the candidate individual; e) using a processor to determine image similarity metrics between the digital images for the candidate individual and the digital images for each proxy individual; f) using a processor to determine similarity values between the candidate individual and each proxy individual responsive to the determined image similarity metrics; g) using a processor to estimate the personal appeal of the candidate individual to the observer by determining a weighted combination of the personal appeal values for the proxy individuals, wherein the weighted combination uses weighting coefficients that are determined responsive to the similarity values between the candidate individual and the corresponding proxy individual; and h) storing an indication of the estimated personal appeal in a processor-accessible memory.