[sbc]

Please help me search for this online article on why a little barrel distortion actually produces more natural looking faces at the edge of the photo.
I have been searching for a week but to no avail. I read it some years ago.

Basically it went like this:
Faces at edge of wide angle photo get stretched out due to linear correction. But with slight barrel distortion, they are not so stretched out and thus more natural looking.
The article illustrated it by showing 2 group photos taken with an ultra wide and a full frame fisheye(?). The photo with the fisheye showed curve building structures at the background but naturally shaped faces at the edges.

I wonder if anyone else had seen that write up.

[Sandy Hancock]

I don't know what article you are a referring to, but the effect rectilinear ultra-wides have on faces at the peripheries is pretty widely known.

[StiffLegged]

I don't know what article you are a referring to, but the effect rectilinear ultra-wides have on faces at the peripheries is pretty widely known.

Yes, very widely.

[Digitalis]

the effect rectilinear ultra-wides have on faces at the peripheries is pretty widely known.

And no amount of software correction can compensate for it. For headshots and even half length portraits, rule of the thumb is to avoid using anything wider than 28mm on DX or 35mm on FX format.

[zapp]

Don’t need an article, use distortion correction software and play with more or less distortion.

[hcc]

A solid software for lens distortion correction is PTlens. Digital Camera Utility (from Pentax/Roch) can also do lens distortion correction for Pentax lens, but not as good IMHO.
To visualise lens distortion, the lens review of Optical limits Welcome to OpticalLimits! are quire quite, in the section Distortion.
I hope that the comments may help.