How to use OBS Studio Virtual Camera to make your webcam look better

Make your webcam look better by first piping it through OBS Studio.

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Recent times have changed how we work, and for many, that means more remote meetings using software like Microsoft Teams and Zoom. But what hasn’t changed much, sadly, is how good even thebest webcamsare. If you’re conducting business remotely, you still want to look your best.

Fortunately, while webcam hardware has been treading water the software has been getting better and better. But one tool you may have overlooked isOBS Studio.

More commonly known as a tool for streamers, OBS Studio also has what’s known as “Virtual Camera” built-in on Windows, Mac, and Linux. What this does is export whatever you have set up in OBS Studio to your system as if it were a webcam. And this means you can get really creative if you want to. But even in its most basic form, you can transform your webcam’s video from drab to fab.

How to set up OBS Studio Virtual Camera

The good news is that there is no setup required. Virtual Camera now comes standard in OBS Studio so assuming you have the latest version you’re all good to go.

To send your scenes out to the rest of your system as a webcam you simply need to click the Start Virtual Camera button in the Controls dock on the main screen of OBS Studio.

Then, whichever app you want to use a webcam with, instead of selecting your hardware webcam, choose the OBS Virtual Camera option instead. You won’t be able to select your hardware webcam by accident as OBS Studio has exclusive use of it, so you’ll just get a black screen.

How to make your webcam look better in OBS Studio

While using OBS Studio as your webcam is really easy, unless you actually use the software to your advantage there’s little point to it. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a production whiz to make things look a little nicer to the eye.

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The first thing to do is add your webcam.

Now, you can either clickOKor proceed to tweak some settings. If you do click OK first, you can get back to this same menu byright-clickingon your webcam in the sources dock and choosingProperties.

There are quite a lot of settings you can change, but these are the most important ones to look at. On Windows you’ll first need to select Custom under Resolution/FPS type, then change these settings:

For most purposes, you can leave the rest of the initial settings on their default values. Now it’s time to get into the camera controls. On Windows, you’ll first need to click theConfigure Videobutton, while on Linux the controls will be in the same window. Try adjusting these settings in this order:

By now your webcam should be looking better already. The final stage is to make sure it’s filling the OBS Studio window (unless you’re going to get really creative) by simply dragging the corners to resize. Virtual Camera will send out exactly what you’re looking at in OBS Studio, so if your webcam is the size of a postage stamp, that’s how it’ll look on your Zoom call.

But there’s still one more thing you can do with OBS Studio to make your webcam pop a little more.

How to add filters to your webcam in OBS Studio

All of the settings above are changes that you make to the video coming in from your webcam, but there’s still more you can do. In the same way that you would edit a photo or a video after the fact, you can do the same in OBS Studio as well with filters.

There are a number of filters you can use, but there are two in particular that will help make your webcam look better: Color Correction and LUT.

To add a filter, right-click on your webcam in the sources dock and chooseFilters. You now want to add a new item in theEffects Filtersportion, selecting either of the two above. Here’s what you can do with them:

Additionally, if your webcam gives you particularly soft images you can also add a sharpening filter, but it’s pretty strong so don’t go overboard with it.

All of these are pretty easy tweaks to make and they’re also completely free. This also only scratches the surface of what you can do with OBS Studio. If you want to get more advanced you can set up a whole presentation, with multiple scenes, and send it all out over your video conferencing software thanks to Virtual Camera.

OBS Studio is free and open source software with endless possibilities, a huge community, plugins and so much more.

Richard Devine is a Managing Editor at Windows Central with over a decade of experience. A former Project Manager and long-term tech addict, he joined Mobile Nations in 2011 and has been found on Android Central and iMore as well as Windows Central. Currently, you’ll find him steering the site’s coverage of all manner of PC hardware and reviews. Find him on Mastodon atmstdn.social/@richdevine