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This is a favorable feature in a publication that the president has long exalted – but for one catch. The front-page image, the president decreed, ""could be the worst ever".

Time's praise to the president's involvement in facilitating a truce for Gaza, headlining its early November edition, was accompanied by a photograph of the president taken from below while the sun shining from the back.

The effect, Trump claims, is ""terrible".

"The publication wrote a fairly positive story about me, but the image may be the Worst of All Time", Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“They removed my hair, and then had an object hovering on top of my head that appeared as a hovering tiara, but an remarkably little one. Truly strange! I consistently avoided taking pictures from low perspectives, but this is a extremely poor picture, and should be criticized. Why did they do this, and why?”

Donald Trump has shown no secret of his desire to appear on Time’s cover and achieved this multiple times in the past year. The obsession has reached his golf courses – years ago, the magazine asked him to remove fake issues shown in a few of his establishments.

The latest edition’s photo was taken by a photographer for a news agency at the presidential residence on 5 October.

The shot's viewpoint did no favours for the president's jawline and throat – an opening that California governor Gavin Newsom did not miss, with his press office posting a modified photo with the problematic part pixelated.

{The Israeli captives in Gaza have been freed under the first phase of the president's diplomatic initiative, together with a Palestinian prisoner release. The arrangement might turn into a major success of the president's renewed tenure, and it could mark a pivotal moment for the Middle East.

Simultaneously, a defense of the president’s appearance has emerged from an unexpected source: the director of information at the Russian foreign ministry stepped in to denounce the "self-incriminating" picture decision.

It's amazing: a photo says more about those who chose it than about the subject. Just unwell persons, people filled with spite and hatred –maybe even degenerates – could have picked this picture", she shared on the messaging platform.

In light of the positive pictures of Biden that the periodical featured on the front, despite his physical infirmity, the case is self-damaging for the magazine", she added.

The response to Trump’s questions – what did the editors intend, and why? – might involve innovatively depicting a sense of power says Carly Earl, a media professional.

"The actual photo itself technically is good," she says. "They picked this image because they wanted the president to look impressive. Staring up at someone evokes a feeling of their grandeur and the president's visage actually looks reflective and almost somewhat divine. It's uncommon you see images of the president in such a calm instance – the image has a softness to it."

His hair appears to “disappear” because the light from behind has overexposed that part of the image, creating a halo effect, she says. Even though the story’s headline marries well with the president's look in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the individual in question."

"No one likes being photographed from below, and although all of the conceptual elements of the image are very strong, the aesthetics are unflattering."

The news outlet reached out to the periodical for a statement.