Zoom Beauty Filter: How to Use Touch Up My Appearance

Quick answer: Zoom's beauty filter is called Touch up my appearance. In the Zoom desktop app on your Mac, open Settings → Video & effects, select the Camera tab, turn on Touch up my appearance, and drag the slider. Keep it low: a little softening looks natural, a lot looks blurry. Turn on Adjust for low light too if your room is dim. For color looks, use the Video filters tab. For separate skin, teeth, and face-shape controls, choose Xamera as your camera.

Before

After

What Zoom has built in

According to Zoom's guide to enhancing your video, the desktop app offers:

• Touch up my appearance: a slider that softens your appearance and minimizes imperfections.
• Adjust for low light: brightens video in dim rooms, set to Auto or Manual.
• Portrait lighting: extra lighting on your face.
• Video filters: preset looks on their own tab.
• Studio effects: eyebrows, mustache and beard, and lip color.
• Backgrounds: blur or a virtual background.
• HD video and Auto-framing.

On a work account, your administrator controls whether video filters are available, and can add custom filters (Zoom's custom filter guide).

How to turn on Touch up my appearance

On a Mac or Windows PC:

1. Open the Zoom desktop app, click your profile picture, then click Settings.
2. Select Video & effects, then the Camera tab.
3. Turn on Touch up my appearance and drag the slider.

Zoom remembers the setting on that computer and uses it in every meeting you join from it.

On an iPhone or iPad: in the Zoom app, tap More, open Meetings under Settings, then tap Touch up my appearance under Video. Turn it on and use the slider.

On Android: Zoom says Touch up my appearance isn't available in the Android app.

These steps come from Zoom's guide to enhancing your video.

What Touch up does, and what it doesn't

Touch up gives your video a softer focus. It evens out skin texture and small blemishes, but it applies one effect to the whole face. It doesn't whiten teeth, brighten eyes, or change face shape, and it can't fix bad light.

• Start low. Begin near the left end of the slider and raise it slowly. Higher settings blur eyebrows, eyelashes, and hair along with your skin, which is when people notice.
• Fix the light first. Touch up works on the picture it gets. A lamp or window in front of you does more than any slider. How to look good on FaceTime covers light, camera height, and framing, and the same tips apply in Zoom.
• Check the preview. Look at the preview in the Camera tab before you join, then turn Touch up off for a moment to compare.

How to use Zoom's filters on a Mac

1. Open zoom.us (the Zoom Workplace app) and click your profile picture, then Settings.
2. Choose Video & effects.
3. On the Camera tab, check your camera, then turn on Touch up my appearance and drag the slider. Turn on Adjust for low light if your room is dim.
4. Open the Video filters tab and pick a filter, or open Studio effects for eyebrows, facial hair, and lip color.
5. In a meeting, click the arrow next to Stop Video or Start Video to change the camera, background, or filter without leaving the call.

Apple's effects also work in Zoom

Because Apple's video effects work in any app that uses the camera, the macOS Video menu is available while Zoom is on camera. Click Video in the menu bar to use Portrait blur, Studio Light, Edge Light, Center Stage, and backgrounds on supported Macs. Mac camera settings lists what each effect needs.

Pick one lighting effect and one background effect. Zoom's Portrait lighting plus Apple's Studio Light, or Zoom's blur plus Apple's Portrait, can make edges and skin look overprocessed.

Add beauty filters and color looks with Xamera

Zoom's touch-up is a single softening slider for the whole face. Xamera Face Studio gives you separate controls for skin smoothing, teeth whitening, face shape, eyes, nose, and lips. Xamera also adds full-frame looks such as Golden Hour, Vintage, and Noir, plus brightness, exposure, and contrast controls.

1. Install Xamera on an Apple-silicon Mac running macOS 15.5 or later, and complete its camera-extension setup.
2. In Xamera, choose your camera and set up Face Studio or a look.
3. In Zoom, open Settings → Video & effects → Camera and choose Xamera from the camera list.
4. Turn Zoom's own Touch up my appearance off, or keep it low, so your skin isn't smoothed twice.
5. Check the Zoom preview before the meeting.

If Xamera or an effect is missing in Zoom

• Xamera isn't in the camera list: complete Xamera's camera-extension setup, then quit and reopen Zoom.
• Zoom shows a black preview: open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Camera and allow zoom.us to use the camera.
• A Zoom option is missing: update Zoom. On work accounts, ask your administrator whether video filters and touch-up are allowed.
• Apple's effects are missing: each one depends on your Mac, camera, and macOS version.

Frequently asked questions

Does Zoom have beauty filters?

Partly. Touch up my appearance softens your appearance with one slider, and Studio effects add eyebrows, facial hair, and lip color. Zoom has no separate controls for teeth, face shape, eyes, or nose. For those, use a camera app such as Xamera and choose it in Zoom.

Where is Touch up my appearance in Zoom?

On a computer, it's in Settings → Video & effects → Camera. On an iPhone or iPad, tap More → Meetings → Touch up my appearance.

Why can't I find Touch up my appearance?

It isn't available in Zoom's Android app. On a computer, update Zoom to a current version. If you use a work or school account and the option is still missing, ask your administrator.

Can other people tell I'm using Touch up?

At low settings it mostly looks like softer light. At high settings your skin and fine details look blurred, which people do notice. Compare the preview with the slider at zero before you join.

How do I turn off face tracking in Zoom?

Turn off Auto-framing in Settings → Video & effects. If your picture still follows you on a Mac, Apple's Center Stage is doing it: turn off Center Stage from the Video menu in the menu bar.

Where are video filters in Zoom on a Mac?

Open Settings → Video & effects and select the Video filters tab. During a meeting, click the arrow next to the video button.

Why can't I see video filters in Zoom?

Update the Zoom app first. If you use a work or school account, your administrator may have turned video filters off.

Can I use Snapchat filters in Zoom on a Mac?

Not in the Zoom desktop app. Snap Camera shut down on January 25, 2023, and Snapchat Camera for Chrome only adds Lenses to websites in Chrome. See what happened to Snap Camera for the options that still work.

Can I use the same filters in FaceTime and Google Meet?

Yes. Xamera works as a camera in any Mac app that lets you choose one. See FaceTime filters on Mac and Google Meet filters on Mac.