Zoom adds face effects to make you look crazy in meetings

While Zoom was originally created as a serious corporate meeting application, it has since become one of the most used services during the pandemic for anyone looking to have a personal virtual conversation. As a result, the company has added more fun things, such as weird wallpapers, to use for online family gatherings, chats with friends, and business meetings. And now it comes with a feature called Studio Effects that allows you to add a variety of eyebrows, facial hair and lip color to your video image during zooming sessions.

The feature, which is still in beta, isn’t exactly new ̵

1; Zoom announced it in September 2020 – but this is the first time many Zoom users are discovering it for the first time. In any case, it is easy to find. Start a Zoom session and go to Video Settings (which can be found by pressing the arrow next to “Stop Video” at the bottom of the screen). From there, select “Background and Filters” and look for “Studio Effects (Beta)” in the lower right corner. (You may need to download the effects pack first – go ahead, it will only take a minute.)

Then you can influence any look you want. Always wanted Groucho Marx eyebrows or a mean goatee or bright green lipstick? It is there to try. And you can set your face effects for just that meeting or for any meeting you’re in (which might not be a good idea if you think there’s a last-minute job interview coming up).

We reached out to Zoom to find out how widespread this new feature is (so far, several employees here at The edge reported seeing it in their Zoom applications). Personally, while this is a lot of fun, I hope that Zoom will add hairstyles to its Studio Effects – those of us who are still suffering from pandemic hair (in other words, who haven’t visited a salon in about a year). years) would be very grateful.