Webcam lighting for video calls: how to fix a dark, grainy or yellow picture

A webcam sensor is small, so it needs a lot of light to produce a clean picture. In a dim room the camera raises its gain, which adds grain, and slows its exposure, which blurs movement. Giving the camera more light fixes both problems at once, and it is cheaper than a better camera.

The goal is simple: light your face evenly from the front, and avoid strong light behind you.

Place your main light source facing you, behind or beside the monitor, rather than above or beside you. Front light fills the face and flattens shadows. Light from behind makes the camera expose for the bright background, and your face turns into a dark silhouette.

The most common mistake is sitting with a window behind you. The camera's automatic exposure sees the bright window and darkens everything. If you cannot move your desk, close the blind or turn so that the window is beside or in front of you.

Daylight is free and soft. Facing a window gives the best result for most people. A window to one side gives more shape to the face but a darker far side. Daylight changes during the day, so a picture that looks perfect at noon may be dull at five o'clock.

Direct sun is too harsh and causes squinting and sharp shadows. If the sun hits your face directly, soften it with a thin curtain or a sheet of white paper over the window.

A bare bulb or a small, bright lamp creates a hard light with deep shadows under the nose and chin. A larger, softer source is more flattering: a lamp pointed at a white wall or ceiling, a lamp with a diffuser, or a panel light with a frosted cover.

Position the light slightly above eye level and angled down. Too low looks unnatural, and too high creates dark eye sockets. A distance of about an arm's length to a metre usually gives enough brightness without glare.

Light has a colour, measured in kelvins. Warm bulbs, around 2700 K, look yellow on camera. Daylight is around 5000 to 6500 K and looks neutral to slightly blue. For video calls, a neutral light around 4000 to 5600 K looks natural for most skin tones.

Avoid mixing different colours. A warm ceiling lamp together with cold daylight gives uneven colour on your face. If you cannot change the room light, make your main light stronger than the rest so it dominates, and turn off the others.

If you wear glasses, a bright light directly in front can reflect in the lenses. Move the light slightly to one side and a little higher, so the reflection moves out of the camera's view. A matte finish on the lenses or tilting the glasses a few degrees also helps.

Your own screen is also a light source. A very bright white document in front of you tints your face blue and can cast a visible glow. Lowering the screen brightness or using a darker theme reduces it.

Most webcam software offers controls for exposure, brightness, contrast and white balance. Automatic exposure works well when the light is stable. If the picture keeps pumping brighter and darker, set the exposure manually after you have placed your light.

Turn off any option that lowers the frame rate in low light if you value smooth motion. Prefer more light instead. Set the white balance to automatic or to a daylight preset that matches your light, and only adjust brightness at the end.

1. Face the main light source and turn off bright light behind you.

2. Place the lamp slightly above eye level, about an arm's length away, and soften it.

3. Keep one colour of light in the room, around neutral white.

4. Open a camera test and check for grain on a plain wall and for dark shadows on your face.

5. Adjust the angle of the lamp until your face is evenly lit, and lock the exposure if the picture keeps shifting.