How to add and style your webcam in a screen recording

Step by step

1. 01

   Turn the camera on

   In the capture bar, click the camera button and choose your camera. To have it on every time, turn on Enable camera by default in Settings › Device.

   While you record, a preview bubble shows you on screen. Put it wherever it’s out of the way: it isn’t captured with the screen, because the camera is recorded on its own.

2. 02

   Record your screen

   Click Display, Window or Area, pick what to record and click Start Recording. Your screen and your camera are kept apart in the project, so everything that follows can still be changed later.

3. 03

   Shape and place the camera

   In the editor, open the Camera tool. Choose a Shape: Square, Wide, Tall or Original. Pick one of the nine spots in Position, then set Size, Rounded Corners, Margin and Shadow. Mirror flips the picture if you’d rather see it the way a mirror shows you.

4. 04

   Blur or replace the background

   Under Matte / Replace Background, choose Blur to soften the room behind you, or Custom to put a picture there: one from the built-in sets, or one of your own. Original leaves the camera as it was.

   Portrait gently blurs what’s behind you, whether that’s your room or a picture, and Studio Light brightens you and dims the background.

5. 05

   Or cut yourself out

   Choose Matte and the background goes altogether: you stand directly on your screen recording, the way a presenter stands in front of their slides.

6. 06

   Add an outline, a border or a filter

   With Matte on, Matte Outline traces your cut-out in one of seven styles (Single, Dashed, Torn, Sketch, Glow, Triple or Polygon) and sets its Color, Size and Opacity. In the other modes, Border frames the camera in a solid colour or a gradient. Filter gives the picture a look, from Vivid and Retro to Warm and Mono.

7. 07

   Keep the camera out of the way

   Under Camera Size While Zoomed, turn on Shrink while zoomed and the camera gets smaller whenever the view zooms in, so it never covers what you’re showing.

How it works without a green screen

ScreenFlowy uses Apple’s own person-segmentation AI, built into macOS, to tell you apart from the room frame by frame, right on your Mac. There’s nothing to hang behind you and no colour to key out.

The effect is applied to the camera recording kept in your project, which itself stays untouched. Try Blur today and Matte tomorrow: nothing has to be recorded again.

For the cleanest cut-out

• Sit in front of a plain, simple background that contrasts clearly with you.
• Light your face well. When the room is brighter than you are, Studio Light evens it out.

Full-screen camera, or none at all

For an intro or a sign-off that’s all about you, add a camera layout: Add Camera Layout in the Camera tool puts one on the timeline at the playhead. Select it to choose Full Screen for the camera alone, Hide for the screen alone, or Default for both.