GADGET GURU
Webcam beauty tips from T3’ s radiant tech buff
ATough one, this, as Guru’s cosmetic surgery licence has (quite rightly) been suspended, so he can’t exactly whip out a scalpel or a syringe full of questionably-sourced Botox to help you out. But he can, at least, diagnose some of the reasons a webcam makes you, an otherwise beautiful person, look like an only vaguely humanoid bag of butter.
Positioning is one issue, and if you’re unlucky enough to have a last-gen Dell XPS 13 or any other laptop with the camera in its hinge, you’ll likely have noticed the big problem with a cam that points directly at the underside of your chin and up your nose: that ain’t flattering. Grab yourself a solid external webcam (Logitech’s Brio Ultra HD Pro might be a bit pricey at £200, but its picture does beat the company’s 1080p C922 at £95) and fasten that to the top of your laptop screen or, ideally, to a tripod camera stand high above for that tried and tested Instagram angle.
There’s a lot you could do to improve the overall image coming from your webcam – software filters can work wonders, and you’ll definitely want to have a fiddle with the exposure and white balance – but feeding the sensor with a better image will do you more favours.
A ring light around your camera (Neewer’s cheap option on Amazon will do) will make your eyes sparkle and ensure you’re very evenly illuminated.
If you don’t want to add any extras, the Razer Kiyo webcam (£100) includes its own little ring light mounted around the lens.
There’s a lot you could do to improve the image coming from your webcam – software filters can work wonders