You know you’re stuck in the endless loop of a pandemic life when you can no longer get the excitement to change your silly Virtual Zoom background. I have you’ve been overusing the default Zoom “space” image for a while—But imagine my surprise when I changed it the other day and discovered that the app now includes it lots of virtual backgrounds i effects for everyone.
To access it, make sure you’ve updated Zoom to the latest version of the app. Doing so should be self-explanatory on your mobile devices. On the desktop, click your profile picture at the top right of the Zoom main window and select Check for updates the menu.
(While there are no guarantees that you’ll get additional features if you upgrade to the latest version of Zoom, keeping up to date with updates gives you the best chance possible. And it’s also great for Zoom security. Okay , back to the fun.)
Start a zoomed call and drag the virtual background function by clicking the arrow next to the video switch at the bottom left corner. Select “Choose virtual background” and now you should see some new options – a beautiful lively beach, as well as a simpler “background blur” feature. I can’t decide which one I like best.
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But we’re almost done. Click on the small one “Study effects” link to the lower right and you’ll get one pop-up sidebar that allows you to assign new eyebrows, a mustache and / or beard, and a lip color. Lovely. Who doesn’t want a couple Those Eugene Levy?
Be sure to uncheck “Apply to all future meetings” so you don’t have to worry to forget to adjust these effects when switching friends meeting locations over the weekend to the next work chat.
Once you’ve finished wrapping, be sure to click Zoom “Video filters” option, located to the right of “Virtual Backgrounds”. There, you will find a lot of different filters that you can tap on the image, from filters that adjust its color, well:
Don’t forget to turn it off “Reflect my video” if you find that some of the effects are reversed. How much more will your friends and colleagues know that they confuse your presentation?
While you won’t find the aforementioned studio effects or the beautiful animated beach in the mobile versions of your Zoom app (at least as of this writing), you should be able to access the filters from the virtual background menu.