Chapter 5
In This Chapter
Using Photo Booth to take photos
Adding effects to images and movie clips
Capturing video with iMovie
Many Apple switchers and first-time owners quickly notice the built-in video camera that accompanies their iMacs, MacBooks, and Apple Thunderbolt displays: a tiny square lens and LED light at the top of the screen. That square is the lens of your FaceTime HD camera (and the accompanying microphone), which allows audio and video chatting in Messages, video chatting in FaceTime, or a quick, fun series of photos or video clips via Yosemite’s Photo Booth and iMovie applications. You can even take your user account photo with your FaceTime HD camera (in the System Preferences window)!
What’s that you say? Your last computer didn’t have a video camera? Well then, good reader, you’ve come to the right place! In this chapter, I show you how easy it is to produce photos and video with your FaceTime HD camera. Sassy!
As I mention earlier, every MacBook and iMac running Yosemite is ready to capture video out of the box, so pat yourself on the back and do the Technology Dance.
Figure 5-1 illustrates a typical MacBook FaceTime HD camera. What can you do with your camera? Here’s the rundown:
The FaceTime HD camera’s indicator light glows green whenever you’re taking a snapshot or recording video … which, when you think about it, is A Good Thing (especially if you prefer chatting at home in Leisure Mode).
To snap an image in Photo Booth, follow these steps:
You can launch Photo Booth also from Launchpad or from the Spotlight search box, and you’ll find it in the Applications folder on your hard drive.
Figure 5-2 illustrates the application window that appears. (Ignore the rather silly gentleman who wandered into the frame. I doubt that he’ll be in your Photo Booth window!)
To try things out full-screen, click the Zoom/Full-Screen button at the top-left corner of the Photo Booth window, or choose View⇒Enter Full Screen. From the keyboard, press +Control+F. To return to windowed mode, press Esc.
Use the three buttons at the lower left of the Photo Booth window to switch between taking four sequential photos (arranged as a group, like a photo strip from an arcade photo booth), one photo, or a movie clip.
Photo Booth displays a screen of thumbnail preview images so you can see how each effect changes the photo. You can produce some of the simple effects you may be familiar with from Photoshop, such as a black-and-white image or a fancy color-pencil filter, or you can indulge in some mind-blowing distortion effects, animated birds or hearts, and even an Andy Warhol–style pop-art image.
To return the display to normal without choosing an effect, click the Normal thumbnail, which appears in the center. (That was Paul Lynde’s spot, for those of you old enough to remember Hollywood Squares.)
Of course, you can always launch your favorite image editor afterward to use a filter or an effect on a photo — for example, the effects available in iPhoto. However, Photo Booth can apply these effects automatically as soon as you take the picture.
When you choose an effect, Photo Booth automatically closes the Effects display.
The image (or video clip) automatically appears in the filmstrip at the bottom of the window. Photo Booth keeps a copy of all the images and clips you take in that filmstrip for easy access. Click a photo or film clip in the filmstrip, and a Share button appears below the filmstrip that allows you to do these things:
“Mark, am I limited to capturing stuff with Photo Booth?” Oh, pshaw on limitations … you’re a Mac owner, after all! You can also use your FaceTime HD camera to snag video clips (complete with audio) in iMovie.
As I mention earlier in this chapter, if you’re using an iSight or external web camera, you can choose this setting with a clear conscience, no matter what hardware you own.
iMovie automatically displays the incoming video in the monitor pane while it’s recorded. (As you might expect, the goofy behavior on the part of the distinguished cast usually starts at about this moment.)
After you end the recording, iMovie creates the video clip and adds it to your iMovie Library.
I go into much more detail on iMovie in Chapter 4 of Book III, but that’s the gist of recording video clips.