Can you help me look less ugly in Teams calls?

[WaterWall22]

In real life I'm a pretty average looking middle-aged woman. Lots of my work is on Teams as I work for large national company.
Few times now when I've met people first time in person they've said something along the lines of: 'You look nice?!' in a really surprised way. One woman actually said 'gosh, you look so much nicer and younger in person!'
I've always thought myself that I do look terrible on Teams, but others clearly think so too!
So what do you do to look nice on Teams? I have to wear a headset due to confidentiality so hair is always flat which doesn't help..

It’s always the lighting, OP. Get one of those lights posters are recommending, or try out different positions in your room.

I go from looking like a haggard, worn old woman to a mere youth depending on the lighting!

Betty was a fox!

Agree with:
Lighting
Bit of make-up
Settings/focus (I don't use this)
Lap top riser, so you are looking up a bit (obvs you need an additional keyboard for this)
I have blue tooth headphones/pods which are also noise cancelling. Absolute gamechanger. Hadn't realised about the noise cancelling aspect. Bought them because I am vain and don't like what a headset does to my hair.
Wear good colours that suit you near your face.

😂 So what do people say to you when they meet you in person.

It’s the angle and the lighting. I sometimes move to work in different rooms at home and it makes a difference. Experiment with the right angle (you might need a laptop stand) and lighting. I have a ring light with softer and whiter light options.

The hair is also part of it - can you change your style and still wear the headphones?

Have just tried to find the blur filter, but looks like everything apart from the background filters is disabled for us!! 😥

Can you ask IT to change it?

I think there is some kind of setting that softens your features somehow, some people in my organisation use it, I believe

No advice but just here to say me too!!!!

You may actually have to practice with the Teams/laptop camera, as cringe as it sounds.

Your laptop and software have particular settings for video capture. You can change it to portrait mode, and add a few other filters to soften how the camera captures your face and include depth of field.

Good light is very important. The light should come from behind your laptop and subtly light up your face. Again, something you need to test out. Soft, warm light usually lands best.

Angle - the laptop should be angled so that it flatters your face, i.e. not looking up your chin and nose. Elevate the camera if need be so it looks straight at your face/ slightly down.

Colours - wear colours that compliment your complexion. Shades of white or blue are quite universal, but everyone has their own.

Sounds incredibly vain but there's lots of videos of me online being interviewed via Zoom/Teams, so may as well make an effort to look good.

The filter is great, but also general lighting, how you have your hair etc. I will turn up with no make up and hair back and look crap(it’s fine), I will also turn up in no make up, good lighting and hair down and look pretty good!
and I’ve recently discovered on of the booths at work has the best lighting in the world especially if I’m in eyeliner and lots of blusher….

This is a great point I didn’t mention. If I have an important external client meeting or presentation I double check my camera just before by creating a fake “meet now” by myself and checking my lighting, makeup, outfit and background on full screen view then adjusting until happy. Not just rocking up into an important call with no idea how I will appear - although I do this for regular chats, my day to day colleagues take me as they find me and vice versa!

Get a ring light. Makes all the difference. I had one in covid but now I don't care how I look.

If you click on the drop down arrow next to camera, when it opens you should have an option for soft focus . You can just drag the arrow along to increase the soft focus - I have mine at 80%! A ring light is also good but experiment with the options for the colour and brightness of the light until you find the best one for you. And the height of the camera is really important - I don’t ever use my laptop camera , it’s awful. I have bought a little camera which is set up at height and that is much more flattering!

It’s on the camera. When you click on the camera in Teams, it’s a line below where you can select the intensity of the blur.

I find I look better if I look up more. Fix my eyes slightly above the natural position. The double chin looks better…

A few things I do:

• ensure laptop camera is at head height. You don’t want to be looking down
• earrings make a big difference
• i wear more make-up if I have a full day of Teams meetings. Heavy on the mascara, bronzer and blusher

Touch up filter definitely, lipstick and blusher. Laptop sitting on two large books.

I sympathise. I look like a blobfish on camera.

How do I do the filter thing please? 😂

Fix the lighting - if the light is coming from the side literally everyone will look bad.

You need the light to come from in front of you.

FYI you might not all have the blur option. I don’t, it is turned off at organisation level, which, whilst I wouldn’t mind using a small % correction is probably for the best as I have worked somewhere that used zoom and it is weird when people overcorrect.

off topic but I also really hate when a Teams profile pic looks like it was taken for a dating app rather than a professional (or at least unfiltered normal photo cropped) headshot. I have had to speak to a couple of junior colleagues about making a more appropriate choice to represent the business!

Ohy God I had no idea that Teams had filters or that people were using them. I know these things exist for social media etc but for work?! Really?

God we are a pathetically vain and shallow species.

I have the opposite. I look 20 years younger (apparently) on teams. I've no idea how. When I then meet people in real life they look confused and a bit weirded out. Be grateful it's your way round I would say!

Always makeup and tidy hair, of course but. Get some ear buds, they dont flatten hair. Smile. Then look at your camera. Can you make the background fuzzy, can the camera software soften your image. Cameras can be very cruel. Mine is😕