flattering lighting and angles?

February 17, 2025 4:02 PM

I'm doing a lot of work with others via zoom and google meets and I feel like I don't know how to "look my best" in terms of positioning my laptop and using lighting effectively. Assume I know nothing and want to look as nice (rested, symmetrical, with minimal wrinkles) as possible!

I'm looking for

A) recommendations for a ring light or similar product I can use (budget around $100)
B) optimal lighting set up - is the light supposed to be behind me, in front of me, or both? What about side lighting? Is natural light from window vs light bulbs less harsh? What about warm vs cool bulbs?
C) optimal distance and angle for my laptop (I have an adjustable tray for it)

Additionally, I know there is like a sort of "smoothing" filter in zoom which I'm sometimes able to use, am wondering if there's also one for Google Meets?

No makeup or hair advice please, or advice to use the "hide self" function.

posted by CancerSucks to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

The key concepts are shadowing and diffusion. Lighting in which all the rays are close to parallel, such as from a strong single lamp or the direct sun, tends to create and accentuate shadows, so it will make visible things like wrinkles, and accentuate eyebrows and features, and show folds and patterns in clothing. Ring lights, which are a strong source designed to be used from directly in front, are a special case which create all the shadows behind someone's face, with a kind of flattening photo-flash effect, as though in a dentist's chair. It's characteristic of influencer videos, and you either like it, or you don't. By contrast if you want to reduce the number of shadows, as I think you do, you want more diffuse and indirect light, in which the rays are going everywhere, such as from a big opaque window, or bounced off a wall.

Warm vs. cool depends very much both on your own preferences and the colours of your skin and hair, but very few people look their best under fluorescent light.

If you've got some light coloured fabric or matte objects, or pillows and a lamp, and/or light coloured walls, you've probably already got all the equipment you need. Even better, a few lamps. Meeting lighting for a laptop usually looks best with diffused, soft light, rather than direct light, so your best bet is probably 'bouncing' the light from a strong non-diffuse source (like the sun, or lamp) off a few light-coloured, moderately distant objects like a wall, a few arms' lengths away, and next to you.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:28 PM on February 17 [3 favorites]

I have a very easy and cheap way for you to achieve a lot of this:

I have now bought two of these clip-on ring lights that clip on your monitor. They are $24 and plug in with usb to your laptop. Clip on on top and aim it at your face. There are three brightness levels and three slightly different colors/tones.

So, you clip that on your laptop. Where you hold it naturally is probably about right. You can play with the few light levels (I tend to go for the least bright light). You want it on your face.

Natural light is fine, but really only works if you're right against a window. It's better not to have a crazy bright light behind you or next to you.
posted by bluedaisy at 5:24 PM on February 17

In terms of angles, I prefer to have the webcam slightly higher than my eye level.

Theoretically I could achieve this with a laptop webcam by elevating the laptop a great deal; in practice, I tend to prefer setups where I can clip a freestanding webcam to the top of a freestanding monitor.
posted by Jeanne at 5:30 PM on February 17 [1 favorite]

This creator on Instagram gives really great step by step advice on how to look better on camera. A lot of her content is about posing, but I'm certain I've seen her give video conference type advice too, more back in the heavy wfh days. Worth a scroll through to see if her presenting style is up your alley.
posted by phunniemee at 5:38 PM on February 17

How far are you willing to go with this? For example, my desk faces a wall. The ceiling lights in the room are great for the other uses of the room but are behind me, as is the ground floor window. Desk lamps point down because they were intended to allow you to look at the paper in front of you…I have no paper, I have two big monitors in front of me and I need the desk space for them. The walls next to my desk are exposed concrete, kinda industrial. So there is nothing to diffuse light around me and so ring light it is. You can adjust how strong it is, how cold or warm etc. My light just sits on the mounting bracket for the monitors. I have an external camera that sits on top of one of my monitors. The setup is by no means perfect but it works well and was not expensive to set up. The result is a lot better than any of the other options that don’t involve moving house.
posted by koahiatamadl at 5:41 PM on February 17

Just in case .... I spent money on a well-recommended ring light before realizing that because I wear glasses and need to keep them on during Zoom meetings, that the ring light would just cause a big obvious reflection in my glasses. Did a trial and error and never actually used the thing during the meeting.

If you don't wear glasses or you can take them off for camera meetings, then don't worry about this.

What I ended up doing was getting some bright lights, starting the video and recording it and then getting up moving them a little getting up moving them a little getting up moving a little, and then watching the video to see which arrangement looked the most flattering for me.
posted by fennario at 6:22 PM on February 17

Definitely position the camera slightly above eye level - not only does this avoid people looking up at you from under your chin (turkey neck, anyone?) but it encourages you to maintain a straight posture by lifting your head up.

I spend quite a bit of time in VC and had thought about getting a ring light, but fennario's comment has me re-thinking that. I have my desk beside a large floor-to-ceiling window and, while the lighting is OK it's very strong on that side, so I wouldn't recommend too much side-lighting, because it does tend to create a lot of shadow and unevenness. I can pull down a blind over the window, but then I get no airflow (no aircon). I also find that the lighting varies wildly depending on time of year and day, as well as the weather. If you can control the lighting, consider Fiasco de Gama's advice about indirect light and, if you can minimise or control the amount of natural light, you'll have better control. You may not want to end up adding a bright ring light or other sources to already bright natural light.

I'm not familiar with Google Meets, but do use the lowest 'smoothing' setting with Zoom (which I mostly use for presentations rather than meetings). I advise caution and moderation when using any filters, because they can act unpredictably at times, especially if your Internet connection slows down. The same goes for fake backgrounds - unless you have a green screen behind you and a rock-solid connection, they are very distracting.
posted by dg at 8:35 PM on February 17 [1 favorite]

I'm probably in the minority ... but I've never seen the appeal of ring lights. Looking at another person who's using a ring light on a Zoom, I often see a pair of completely distracting ring-shaped reflections off the person's eyeballs, or worse, off their glasses. Maybe other people who use ring lights have found a technique for aiming them so that they don't reflect into the camera.
posted by JimN2TAW at 8:02 AM on February 18 [1 favorite]

Something that's worked well for me: getting several of those cheap round paper lanterns, putting bright warm white LED bulbs in them, and hanging them on the wall above me near the ceiling (my desk is set up so that I'm facing that wall). I find this light to be flattering and consistent. Only trouble is that LED bulbs flicker when they're going out, and since they're high up I sometimes procrastinate on changing them out.
posted by rivenwanderer at 10:30 AM on February 18

Always remember the cardinal rule of video meetings: NEVER have the light behind you. I am in so many meetings with people who are backlit, and ... they show up as a silhouette, and don't seem to realize it. It's like talking to Witness Protection Program members.

If backlighting is not something you can control (like my current office, where the low-angle sunlight this time of year blasts right through the cheap crappy curtains my work stuck me with) then you need an equally bright light in front of you to offset the glare.

At home, I use a bright lamp that I point toward the (light colored) wall, so that light on my face is indirect. I have overhead lights in the home office, but they make my face look shadowed, so I keep them off in meetings.
posted by caution live frogs at 11:38 AM on February 18

My solution:
I use a two bulb floor light situated next to the side of the desk, which puts it slightly in front but to the side of me. Having two bulb plus the light shade provides good diffusion. There is a slight shadow but it looks pretty natural and the light color is good. I'm facing a window. I have a sheer curtain closed most of the time but I need to pull the dark curtain in the late afternoon when the bright sun low in the sky washes out my face.

By way, I tried a ring light to balance the shadow. There was no way to set it up to avoid getting a circle of light reflected in my glasses so that was a fail.

I've found having my camera slightly above eye level gives me a natural sight line (it looks like i'm looking at you when I'm really looking at your picture.) With my laptop, it means setting the laptop on top of a large box or else I use a large monitor with built-in camera on top. With the large monitor, I have to set the zoom window to be right size to make their face seem like a natural size (NOT full screen) and to set the window as high and as centered as possible. When I'm interacting with a small group in gallery mode, I drag my image to the bottom corner and, if one person is doing most of the talking, I put them top and center to keep my eye line looking natural.
posted by metahawk at 4:58 PM on February 18