ADJUST BRIGHTNESS MAC OS SOFTWARE
If you’ve got an external USB camera (which we highly suggest if you do lots of remote learning or work, because Apple’s built-in cameras are so bad), you should check your camera maker’s website for any free software it offers. It’s frustrating to shell out money for features that probably should be found in Apple’s system preferences, but with a little fiddling around you can really improve the look of your webcam. You can even control many third-party cameras with Webcam Settings. Webcam Settings sits up in your menu bar for quick access, and doesn’t consume much in the way of resources. You can save these settings as quick presets, too. You can adjust exposure time, aperture, brightness, contrast, zoom, backlight compensation, focus, and lots more-depending on the hardware features of the camera you’re adjusting. It works fine on macOS Big Sur and Apple Silicon macs (through Rosetta), and directly controls features of your webcam, so it works with nearly every app.
ADJUST BRIGHTNESS MAC OS MAC
Webcam Settings gives you more control over your FaceTime camera.Ī better solution is probably the Webcam Settings app, which you can grab for $7.99 in the Mac app store. Second, it creates a “virtual webcam” which works fine with some apps (like newer version of Zoom) but not with FaceTime, Photo Booth, or newer versions of Skype. We find it has a lot of great features, but it’s hard to recommend. One of the more frequently mentioned options is iGlasses. Questions? Comments? Have a fix? Post them below orīe sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums.There are several apps out there that let you change the settings on your Mac webcam. At most you will need to change system volume levels, mouse pointer speeds, display resolutions, and similar settings. Resetting the PRAM is a fairly routine step to take when troubleshooting hardware compatibility in OS X, and will not adversely affect your computer. With these keys held, wait for the system to automatically reset itself once, and then release the keys and allow the system to boot normally (the system will continually reset itself as long as the keys are held down). To reset the PRAM, reboot the computer and hold down the Option-Command-P-R keys all at once, immediately after you hear the boot chimes. In addition to troubleshooting the USB connection to the displays, you can try clearing the system's PRAM, which contains a number of display-related settings that might interfere with your display configuration. The same goes for laptop systems, but in this case you will need to power the system down and reboot it. The Displays system preferences will contain a brightness setting for Apple's monitors, but a faulty connection or configuration may cause this setting to be absent.īecause the brightness controls require this connection, if you cannot see any brightness controls then first ensure that the connection is properly established by unplugging it and plugging it back in, or trying a different USB port.įor the Apple Thunderbolt Display this connection is internal, but it might be affected if the USB hub within the display has not been properly initialized, so try turning the display off and back on to see if this corrects the problem. This is done through a secondary USB connection with the monitors, which can be a separate USB cable or, as with Apple's Thunderbolt Display, be connected to the USB hub that is in the display itself. However, for Apple's DisplayPort or Thunderbolt monitors, or those in its laptops and iMac systems, brightness is controlled with the brightness slider or the keyboard brightness functions (commonly on the F1 and F2 keys). However, in some instances this option may be missing, leaving people with no way to adjust the display's brightness.įor third-party monitors that have their own brightness controls, OS X will defer to the monitor's settings. If you have one of these displays, then you should see this brightness slider next to the display resolution list. Most external monitors have brightness and contrast controls accessible in an onscreen display or as buttons around the side of the monitor, but for many of Apple's displays, the brightness controls are accessed through the OS X Displaya system preferences.