A face located along a stitch line in a spherical image is detected by rendering views of regions of the spherical image along the stitch line. The spherical image may be produced by combining first and second images. A first view of a projection of the spherical image is rendered. A scaling factor for rendering a second view of the projection is determined based characteristics of the first portion of the face. The second view is then rendered according to the scaling factor. The use of the scaling factor to render the second view causes a change in the depiction of the second portion of the face. For example, the scaling factor can indicate to change the resolution or expected size of the second portion of the face when rendering the second view. A face is then detected within the spherical image based on the rendered first and second views.