TimerPlanLighting a video call with your screen
A monitor showing white is a large, even, diffuse light source already aimed at your face, which is exactly what portrait lighting wants and what a desk lamp is not. Size relative to the subject is what decides how hard the shadows are, so a 27-inch panel at arm’s length is softer than any bulb you can buy for the same money — which is none.
Which white matters more than brightness. Match the room: warm around 3200 K under household bulbs, daylight around 5500 K in the daytime or under LED panels. A cool blue-white in a warm room makes a face look grey.
The two mistakes are sitting too close, which flattens features and makes people squint, and putting the light directly behind the camera, which removes every shadow that gives a face shape.
Which white
| Room | Panel | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Household bulbs, evening | Warm 3200 K | Otherwise your face reads blue against the wall |
| Daylight, or LED panels | Daylight 5500 K | What most webcams are balanced for |
| Other monitors in shot | Cool 6500 K | Matches the white point of the screens beside it |
| Very dark room | Pure white, dimmed | Maximum light, then pull it back until it is comfortable |
Start at daylight if you are not sure. It is wrong in fewer rooms than either extreme.
Placement, in one paragraph
Off to one side by twenty or thirty degrees, a little above eye level, about an arm’s length away. That is a window on a cloudy day, which is the light every portrait photographer copies. Directly in front and very close is a photocopier, and it looks like one.
What it cannot fix
A bright window behind you. A camera exposes for the whole frame, so a window at your back turns you into a silhouette no amount of front light will rescue at a laptop’s power. Turn the desk ninety degrees and the same window becomes the best light in the building.
The panel itself is the white screen, with the four whites and a dimmer. If you need a backdrop rather than a light, the green screen is at the standard chroma value, and to check the screen for smears before a call — they show on camera as a haze — the black screen is the surface that reveals them.
Frequently asked questions
Is a screen really bright enough?
In a dim room, comfortably. A full-screen white panel on a typical monitor puts out enough light at a metre to lift a face out of the gloom, which is the situation most calls need fixing. It will not compete with a sunlit window behind you — nothing at a desk will, and the fix for backlight is to turn round rather than to add light.
Where should the panel be?
Slightly to one side of the camera and a little above eye level, which is where a window would be. Directly behind the camera gives flat, passport-photo light; off to one side by twenty or thirty degrees leaves enough shadow to show the shape of a face. If you only have one screen, moving your chair a little to one side does the same thing.
Which white for a room with mixed lighting?
Daylight at about 5500 K, and then ignore it. Mixed lighting — a warm lamp and a window — cannot be matched by one panel, and most webcams will pick an average white balance anyway. What matters is not being wildly warmer or cooler than the dominant source in the room.
Can I use a second monitor or a tablet?
A tablet is the better tool, because you can put it where the light should be rather than where the screen has to be. Propped just off to one side at face height, a ten-inch tablet showing white is a small softbox; the same panel on a phone is a fill light for one side of a face at close range.
Will the screen go dark in the middle of a call?
Not while the panel is in full screen — the page asks the browser to keep the display awake, which is exactly the failure that makes people give up on this trick. Screen savers and power settings on the machine can still intervene, and on a laptop running on battery some manufacturers dim regardless.
How this works
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