How to look good on a laptop camera using what is in the room

Laptop cameras are small, cheap and pointed up your nose. That is the starting position for almost everyone, and it is why so many recorded introductions look like they were shot from inside a desk drawer.

You rarely need a better camera. Most of what makes a laptop video look bad is light, angle or sound, and you can fix all of it with things already in the room. I have put the changes in order of how much they help.

Put the light in front of you

This one change does the most. Light should land on your face from in front, not from behind you or from above.

The easiest way is to turn your desk so you face a window. Daylight from a window is soft and even, and it makes the camera's job easy. If the window is behind you, the camera exposes for the bright background and you become a silhouette. If it is to one side, half your face falls into shadow, which can look dramatic but rarely looks friendly.

No window, or recording in the evening? Put a lamp behind the laptop, pointed at your face, slightly above eye level. A desk lamp with a plain white bulb works.

If the light is harsh, bounce it off a white wall or move the lamp further away. The ceiling light alone is the worst option, because it lights your forehead and leaves dark circles under your eyes.

Turn off any bright light behind you, including a monitor. A second screen glowing behind your shoulder pulls the eye away from you.

Raise the camera to eye level

A laptop on a desk puts the camera at chin height, looking up. That angle shows the ceiling, the underside of your jaw and the inside of your nostrils. Nobody looks good from there.

Put the laptop on a stack of books until the camera is level with your eyes, or very slightly above. You should be looking straight into the lens, not down at it. If you then need to type, use an external keyboard, or accept that this is a recording setup rather than a working one.

While you are at it, clean the lens. Laptop cameras collect fingerprints, and a smeared lens makes everything look soft and foggy. A glasses cloth or the corner of a cotton shirt is enough.

Frame yourself

Sit about an arm's length from the laptop. Closer than that and the wide lens distorts your face. Further away and you become a small figure in a large room.

Your eyes should sit in the top third of the frame, with a little space above your head but not a lot. The bottom of the frame should cut somewhere around your chest.

If you can see your whole torso and the desk, you are too far away. If the top of your head is cut off, tilt the screen back a little or sit further away.

Look at the lens when you speak, not at the preview of yourself. The preview is below the camera, so looking at it reads as looking down. If it helps, stick a small arrow next to the lens, or cover the preview with a sticky note once you have checked the framing.

Get the sound right

A slightly soft image is easy to put up with. A voice that echoes or a microphone that picks up every keystroke is much harder to listen to.

Laptop microphones are fine in a room that absorbs sound. Carpet, curtains, a sofa, a bookshelf, a bed: any of these help.

A bare room with a hard floor and a big window makes your voice sound like it was recorded in a stairwell. If the room echoes, move somewhere softer, or hang a coat over the back of the chair behind you.

The wired earphones that came with a phone usually have a microphone that beats the laptop's, because it sits close to your mouth. Use them if you have them. Close other apps before you record so the laptop fan stays quiet, and switch your phone to silent so it does not buzz on the desk.

Say a sentence, record it, play it back, and listen at a normal volume. Ten seconds of checking saves a retake.

Make the background boring

The background should give the viewer nothing to think about. A plain wall or a bookshelf is fine. A pile of laundry is not, and neither is a door that someone might walk through.

Leave some distance between you and the wall if you can. Sitting with your back pressed against it flattens the image, and a metre or two of space behind you gives the picture some depth.

Virtual backgrounds often look worse than a real room, because the edge around your hair can flicker when you move. A real wall, even a dull one, is usually better.

Clothes, glasses and the screen glow

Wear a solid colour that is not the same as the wall behind you. Fine stripes and small checks shimmer on camera. Pure white can blow out under a lamp, and pure black loses all its detail.

If you wear glasses, the laptop screen shows up in them as two bright rectangles. Lower the screen brightness, tilt the glasses slightly down at the front, or raise the lamp so the reflection moves out of the camera's view.

The screen itself casts a blue glow on your face, which looks cold next to warm lamp light. Turn the brightness down for the recording and your skin tone comes back.

A 60 second checklist before you press record

Run through this every time. It takes less than a minute once you are used to it.

Window or lamp in front of me, not behind. Monitor and ceiling light off if they are behind me.

Camera at eye level, lens wiped.

An arm's length away, eyes in the top third of the frame.

Preview checked, and from now on I look at the lens, not the preview.

Room is quiet, phone on silent, other apps closed, earphones in if I have them.

Background is plain and nothing embarrassing is in shot.

Solid colour top, screen brightness down, glasses reflection checked.

One test sentence recorded and played back.

None of this needs a purchase. A window, a stack of books, a lamp from another room and a pair of phone earphones cover almost everything. If you want to put it to use straight away, record your first hi and watch it back on your phone. The browser recording guide walks through the recording itself, and if the picture still looks off, captions help the message land anyway.