How would you express something like “she looks scared” or “he looks nice” or something? Without using an adjective like pulchrus est. Would you say like videtur timere or something? Can you always use videri like that? My dictionary says something about using facies, but that seems a bit awkward to me.
Use speciem praebet with a genitive or an adj. agreeing with speciem.
Speciem lupi praebet it looks like a wolf.
Speciem praebet pavidam she looks scared.
Or you can use videtur.
speciem praebere is unnecessarily periphrastic and, from experience, a phrase that gained much more interest in post-Classical and Neo Latin rather than Classical Latin itself, though doubtless a few examples can be dredged (i know of a good Livian instance). i should add that speciem praebere typically carries the sense of providing a false appearance, as with Grk. fai/nestai + inf., whereas our dingbats seems to mean appearances that can be accurate.
for a Classical author to render naturally ‘she looked scared’ as ‘speciem praebet pauidam’ seems to me not the most likely eventuality. uidetur etc. is perfectly good Latin.
~D