Quote Originally Posted by pugcasso View Post
also taking it from further away (be it a person taking the pic or a camera on a tripod with a timer) helps
This definitely shouldn't be overlooked.

One of the biggest mistakes that people make taking portraits is "zooming out" to fit the whole person in. For a lot of digital cameras, that's about equal to a 20-28mm lens on 35mm film - which is bordering on fisheye. Leads to big, round bellies, narrow shoulders, tiny heads, and pointy, bent up feet.

Your best bet with a point-and-shoot digital camera if you don't have room inside, is to go outside, zoom in as far as you can without going into digital zoom (stop zooming when the lens stops moving) and turn on the flash (odd as it may seem in sunlight)

This will almost entirely eliminate lens distortion, and though the flash on most point-and-shoots won't do much, it will add a little bit of fill light, and bring your subject out of the background a bit.