During lockdown I'm using the built-in webcam on my Lenovo Yoga 530 (IKB) laptop a lot for video chat. Mostly via Jitsi in a browser.

Problem: If I have a bright background, my face is too dark.

Plasma Settings does not have a setting to control the webcam brightness or colour balance etc.
It has microphone level settings and settings for input devices like mouse and tablet, but nothing for the webcam.
Jitsi video chat has no adjustments apart from image quality and camera selection.

Q1) Is there a setting to control the webcam globally. For use in Jitsi?
Q2) Is there a app to install that does this? Perhaps by creating a new virtual camera that I can select in Jitsi?

I'm looking for any easy solution for non IT users.
Thanks

For Q2) I just found this. Webcamoid App: https://store.kde.org/p/1131167/
"- Virtual webcam support for feeding other programs." https://github.com/webcamoid/webcamoid/ ... ra-support

I'll give it a try.

Edit:
It needs virtual camera driver installed. (Daily was recommended) https://bintray.com/webcamoid/webcamoid ... iles/linux
Which needs build-essential to be installed first (in Discovery)

But problems stopped the akvcam installation. "Error during installation process (com.akvcamprj.akvcam):
Execution failed (Unexpected exit code: 255): "dkms install akvcam/0.0.0"
https://github.com/webcamoid/akvcam/issues/44
And Webcamoid has an Error when trying to create a Virtual Camera.

So I'm stuck again.

It depends on the specific webcam model, but a good many use the uvc protocol, and and the webcam tool called guvcview may be able to adjust things if it supports your webcam.

claydoh wrote:It depends on the specific webcam model, but a good many use the uvc protocol, and and the webcam tool called guvcview may be able to adjust things if it supports your webcam.

Gucview doesn't seem to let you control the camera. Just the files it creates. I need to control what is being used by the various video chats.

I managed to create a virtual camera in Webcamoid by installing v4l2loopback-dkms from Discover. But I've not got the other programs to use it. In fact it seems to block the real webcam and audio too.

OBS can also create virtual cameras. But it looks, from online instructions, like it's something for IT people only.

New attempt to install akvcam (virtual camera driver) now succeeds. (strangely). And a virtual camera appears in the Jitsi Video Chat camera selector. But it just displays a Wemcamoid logo and no video feed.

Solved it with the help of the Jitsi forum in the Chromium browser.
The last problems was the feed from Webcamoid was inverted.
I installed the Chrome Extension Video Mirror
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... dfcdnmdpkh

1) In Discover install build-essential
2) Download virtual camera driver akvcam
2a) Go to https://bintray.com/webcamoid/webcamoid ... iles/linux
2b) Click on Files
2c) Select the .run file to download
2d) Doubleclick the .run file to install akvcam
3) In Discover install Webcamoid
4) In Chromium Install the Chrome Extension Video Mirror
5) Start Webcamoid. See the webcam image being displayed.
6) Go to Preferences -> General Options and check Virtual Camera Driver shows "akvcam"
7) Go to Preferences -> Outputs and tick Virtual Camera. Then Add Virtual Camera. Enter any name then OK.
8) Go to https://meet.jit.si/ in Chromium to join a Meeting
9) Select a webcam. Choose the Virtual camera name given in step 7)
10) If the live feed is not shown activate the Video Mirror extension.
11) In Webcamoid go to Configure Effects
12) Click the PLUS. Choose any special effect. See it affects your Jitsi video feed.
13) In Webcamoid go to Configure Sources. Adjust Brightness or Contrast as required.