This study aims to figure out the effect of using Histogram Equalization and Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) in detecting facial keypoints, which can be applied for 3D facial reconstruction in face recognition. Four combinations of methods comprising of Histogram Equalization, removing lowfrequency coefficients using Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and using five feature detectors, namely: SURF, Minimum Eigenvalue, Harris-Stephens, FAST, and BRISK were used for test. Data that were used for test were obtained from Head Pose Image and ORL Databases. The result from the test were evaluated using F-score. The highest F-score for Head Pose Image Dataset is 0.140 and achieved through the combination of DCT & Histogram Equalization with feature detector SURF. The highest F-score for ORL Database is 0.33 and achieved through the combination of DCT & Histogram Equalization with feature detector BRISK.