6 Ways Fun Booth Makes Your Mac More Fun

There are times when your Mac should give you a few minutes of plain old fun. Don’t tell me you haven’t tried your Mac’s Photo Booth? Sure you have. You laughed. You clicked. You laughed some more.

Why? Photo Booth is fun. But like all things fun, Photo Booth is a cute gimmick, not ready for prime time, good for keeping kids busy. For about 10 minutes. What you want is real fun that goes beyond minutes.

Photo Booth on your Mac lets you take quick snapshots and video clips using your Mac’s iSight camera. You can send the photos to your friends. Big whoop, right? Photo Booth does a little more, but not much more.

You can distort the photos, add a Jay Leno Iron Jay look to your chin, add a bulbous nose, or pinch your already bulbous nose.

Each of four screens gives you nine effects from a comic book look to black and white to glow to pop art.

You can squeeze an image or video clip, stretch, dent, twirl, fish eye, or add your own backdrop. So, you’ve tried it. It was fun. It was done. Not much to see here. Move along, right? Pretty much. Photo Booth is a cute distraction.

What if you could drop in some props and attach them to your face in the video, and ala Jay Leno style, have the prop move with you? Fun Booth picks up where Photo Booth left off. Where the fun ended in 10 minutes, it gets extended to hours with Fun Booth.

Simply put, Fun Booth is like Photo Booth but with movies and props. For example, you can add weird eyeglasses to your face in the video. Using face-tracking technology, the eyeglasses move with your face. Add a moustache. It stays stuck to your face, mostly under your nose, while you move and talk in the video.

The props include eyeglasses, eyeballs, various forms of facial hair from beard to mustache, and a whole bunch of hats and facial masks. Tools for each of the props let you resize the prop, even save adjustments.

Even better, and where the hours of fun begins, you can add your own props, combine props, add photos, or draw right on top of the screen. Are you in to iChat video? Use your props in real-time while using iChat.

The facial recognition technology makes the props move in somewhat synchronous harmony with your face while you move and talk on screen. It doesn’t take long to have a little library of facial props. Someone has to come up with a Star Wars helmet collection; Darth Vader, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, and others.

Fun Booth lets you take a snapshot of your video creation, but you can also save the video which can be emailed to friends and family.

Photos can be exported to iPhoto and uploaded to Flickr. While you’re iChatting with your friends you can apply the props to their video.

The Props Dock lets you quickly add props and disguises, and the tools let you change settings on the camera and adjust the prop so it fits better.

In short, Fun Booth is pure fun, with dozens of ways to create cool, on screen video effects. The kids will love it, of course. So will adults who are young at heart. There’s even an iPhone version for 99-cents.