Ralph Johns

iChat Windows

iChat In Pictures >> Your are in Folder 4_iChat Windows >> Page: Video Effects Pallet

15[15]

15 Video Effect Pallet

19-10-2008

In iChat 4 you get Video Effects and on Intel Macs, Backdrops as well.

Effects are changes to the way the picture is displayed to you in the Picture-in-Picture and what your Buddy sees. As default there are two pages of these as indicated in this picture from my G4 as it can not do the backdrops. The other page are things like Pinch and Bulge and Mirror.

The criteria for backdrops is actually the graphics card but Apple have iChat looking at the Processor as the Cut-off point as not everyone will have updated their G5 or G4 Graphics card, leaving only Intel Macs capable of doing Backdrops. See this External pic for the Apple Help Specs

Backdrops are those Green screen things you an do where you "Step out of the Frame" and iChat checks the background and stores it and then you can place another one in it's place.

This is one of the Standard backgrounds that iChat and Photo Booth can use. A larger view is here

The highlights were to point out that in some the lighting and colours you are wearing can make a difference to what parts of the Backdrop "bleeds" through.

For instance if your chair is black and can be seen when you are out of shot it is considered background. If you are then wearing a black or suitably dark top that part will become "invisible" as iChat will consider it to be Background as well such as my dark pipe has here. You can also see the left side of my face has more shadow and this gets deeper as it goes to my shoulders where a similar thing happens as my top becomes too dark to distinguish from the Background.

As you can see from the second example, the actual background I have is also dark which is where the problem lies. The first Pic was taken with daylight coming from the left of the pic hence the shadow lower right. The second was taken later with overhead lighting.

As you can see in the second pic my background is quite complicated as well and this does not help either. Single flat colours are best that are different from your clothes.

With Quartz Composer, an App with Xcode, and a bit of study and experiment you can create your own.

Anyway, back to the main Picture. Navigate through the "pages" by mousing over the arrow on the left or right and clicking to advance 1 page at a time.

Next:- Adding Buddies Index

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Created with JAlbum 4.0.6

© 2005 Ralph Johns: Edited 24/9/2005, 5/5/2006
Updated September 2006
Updated October 2008. Reviewed and Updated to HTML 5 October 2024

Information Block

This site is about iChat from Version 1 through to iChat 5.x.x
Mostly this is kept as an Historical Document. Some small tense changes have been made but the content is by and large untouched.

It has a mixture of basic info and problem solving help.

The sections below will change for Specifics about info on the page on view

Options to This Page

To the right you can resize or colour the page as well as choose one of three Fonts.

About This Page

This is about the Effects and Backdrop pallet.

Has simple navigation arrows in the bottom corners to click to advance.

The main info describes some of the pitfalls in lighting and shadows not being recognised from the Background

Compatibility

Much of this page has been altered to be as HTML 5 compatible as possible. This may cause issues with any of the Browser below.

I have tested in Safari 18.1, Firefox 130.x and 131.0, Vivaldi 6.9.3447.48 and iCab 6.2.3 (All Mac Browsers) I don't have access to a PC let alone multiple browsers to test on.

Previously confirmed to work with Win/IE 5.5 and later (should work in 5.0, but not confirmed), Firefox 2, Safari 3, Opera 9, iCab 3.02 and later, Mac/IE 5, Netscape 6 and later

Old browsers (IE version 4 or earlier, Netscape 4 or earlier) may only see a text-based page which, while not the prettiest option, is still entirely usable.

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