A Tip And A Trick Makes Your Mac’s Camera See Better

It’s no longer a question of when the world becomes a village. It’s a face to face village already. iChat, Skype video, and FaceTime have paved the way for us to communicate with anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Both Skype and FaceTime bring mobile video calls for the masses (assuming the masses can afford a smart phone or a Mac or a PC). There’s just one problem. Video quality is poor. Video controls are weak. To see better video on your Mac’s iSight camera it needs iGlasses.

Better Than The Mac’s Best Video

My Mac has been running the iGlasses app for years because it improves the video quality of iChat, Skype, or FaceTime, as well as QuickTime and other apps that use the Mac’s built-in iSight camera.

My use of iGlasses for Mac video dates back to Apple’s add on FireWire iSight camera.

You remember that aluminum cased cylinder camera that looked cool on top of the display, right?

Other than the cost, the only other problem was the horrible video quality. iGlasses changed that by giving Mac users control over the camera’s video.

Control?

Control Your Video Quality

iGlasses’ small control panel works flawlessly to adjust brightness, focus, zoom, contrast, gain, white balance, color balance, sharpness, hue, saturation, shutter speed, and orientation.

That’s exactly how my original iSight camera video appeared before iGlasses. Dark. One click improved everything.

iGlasses comes with a number of video presets including a Night Vision function which gives your video image the green glow of night vision goggles. Without the goggles and with available light. There’s even 50 fun video effects similar to Photo Booth.

Installation is simple. The iGlasses Manage allows you to set up iGlasses for specific applications.

Video images can be rotated sideways or upside down with a click. And, you’re not limited to using Apple’s built-in iSight camera on your Mac.

It also works with most third party USB cameras (including Logitech’s popular QuickCam series and others with a proper driver).

Not all Mac-capable video cameras are created equally, so some features may not work on all cameras. However, the presets are to die for.

Enhanced gives a sharper image with slightly saturated colors (my favorite—I’m a Kodachrome kinda guy). But Extra Bright and Super Bright work well in low light areas. There’s also Sepia, Crazy Color, Macro Focus, Zoom, Black and White and more.

The Video Camera You Always Wanted

For such an inexpensive app, iGlasses is big on features and capability.

What you get is a camera or video image that’s what you expect; not the washed out version that’s standard with typical computer cameras.

You control the color output of your own Mac camera, including saturation, contrast, brightness and more.

While you’re on a video call, iGlasses gives you a handful of useful sharing options. Drag a photo or a video to iGlasses and it displays to the other caller instead of your camera video.

The Mac’s video camera is static, but iGlasses gives you an option to zoom in for a close up.

Installation is a breeze and takes just a few clicks. iGlasses works in FaceTime, iChat, Skype, iMovie, even FaceBook Chat and Google Chat. There’s even a way to use iGlasses in Flash-based sites with built-in video.

Seeing is believing. There’s just not much to not like about iGlasses. The price is modest. It installs quickly. And, it just works so you get better color and more video options than with Photo Booth or your Mac’s camera.

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