OBS CAMERA TUTORIAL
Wondered how you can go from THIS?
TO THIS?!
with literally two lamps, some trial and error and OBS? I got you!
For the record I am using the Logitech Brio in both photos, I've made adjustments with my lighting set up and while it's still not PERFECT it's a lot nicer to look at (in my opinion)
Now for this you will need:
-A webcam -two-three light sources (lamp, ringlight, softbox, etc) -OBS -Splitcam (optional, but I find it give me better control of my colour correction needs) -LUTs (once again, optional!)
Onward to the tutorial!!
When I say lighting is important, I MEAN IT. I learned a lot from lighting when a friend who was in photography taught me the 3 point lighting system. Basically to avoid "dorito shadows" as I like to call them on your face you need to have at least two light sources pointing on you at once. My set up looks like this:
I know, what on earth am I doing streaming when I should be making ART.
Anyways, I have two main source lights (three would be ideal) I have a soft box that is placed slightly to my left and pointing DOWN at me and a ringlight that is directly in front of me with my webcam pointed slightly angled at me (does that make sense?!) behind me are my 'mood' lighting, the fancy coloured lights that give my room the neon-spacey-retrowave kinda vibe I like. You can use whatever lights you want depending on your own personal style! I literally use a $10 ringlight, a soft box lamp, some LED colour changing bulbs in random lamps and some fairy lights I got off amazon. NOTHING FANCY!
Option 1. OBS These are settings that I ALWAYS deselect and play with as leaving it to the webcam software to auto-adjust leads to yellowy, dull or over exposed visuals.
After adding your webcam source select it, right click and select PROPERTIES
then select "Configure Video"
you will get a pop up that looks like this. Now to avoid your camera looking super WARM or COLD or risking a blow out from high exposure DESELECT the following: - White Balance - Exposure (found in 'Camera Control' Tab) - Focus - Low Light Compensation
Then adjust accordingly to how you'd like your camera to look. Don't forget to play with brightness, contrast & saturation!
Next up are LUTs
Luts stand for Look Up Tables and are meant for colour correcting photos/video. You can find a lot for FREE however, I make my own based on the specific colour correcting I require. To use LUTs in OBS right click your camera source and select FILTERS
Here you will see a section for audio/video filters and one for effect filters. We are using effect filters!
Hit the '+' at the bottom and select "Apply Lut"
Now you need to locate your file folder you keep your Luts you've either made or downloaded in, you can also adjust the amount on your lut filter to appear nicer and not so harsh.
For further adjusting hit the '+' again in the effect filter area and select "colour correction" here you can adjust brightness or contrast further as well as Gamma and Hue!
Option 2. Splitcam Video Driver
Download Splitcam! https://splitcam.com/ Splitcam offers dual streaming but with how I run my stream (alerts, graphics, scene switching) I use it as a webcam source.
Splitcam offers a LOT of adjustments that can make your webcam feel more like a DSLR (if your computer is capable of handling it)
Once you've added your webcam via Media Layers +
Click the three dots '...' next to your camera source and select Driver Properties and deselect the same settings I listed in the OBS tutorial
Now Splitcam offers SO MUCH so I will only tell you the settings I mostly use.
Quick adjust, essentially adjusts the colours of your entire "canvas" it also offers a skin smoothing tool (however you need a stronger PC for this to work otherwise it will look all stuttery)
In before a viewer sees this and goes all "OMG FAKE!! U USE FILTERS OMG!!!!111" shut the FUCK UP, no one ASKED YOU, and you are probably the same lame ass who drools over someone who ABUSED the liquify tool in photoshop to the point their background is warped because she looks like a cartoon mom from the 90s. PUH-LEEZE (no offence to those ladies, you do you boo, just poking fun at the people who actually think it's real lmao)
Next up are EFFECTS! Click the three dots next to your camera source
Here you will see where you can adjust colour and light, LUTs, backgrounds, frames, masks (I DO NOT recommend using any of these, some adjust eye colour/slim your face and look WEIRD AF)
Go around and play with what is there and see what you like! I personally use LUTs in here as well as the Highlight/Shadow effect to adjust for what looks best for me. As well as in 'Background' I use Blur to give my webcam that depth that DSLRs have!
Now from here I then go into OBS to select my finished colour corrected source and select "Splitcam Video Driver" as a 'Video Capture Device' then add all my cool overlays as I'd like!
I hope this tutorial is alright, and my bad if it's kinda rushed!