About Translation

UK USA Europe Rest of World Basket 0

Tips for Looking Your Best in Google Meet Calls on Web and Mobile

Bringing your best self to a meeting is key to making a positive impression and fostering meaningful connections. However, common challenges of a remote work environment, such as poor lighting conditions and cluttered backgrounds, can hinder your ability to show up in the way you want to be seen and can prevent you from communicating with other participants effectively.

Fortunately, Google Meet offers a variety of features and tools designed to overcome these challenges and help you look and feel your best. From expressing yourself with custom backgrounds to automatically adjusting your video feed to ensure all participants can see you clearly, we’ve rounded up the features you can leverage from your laptop, computer or mobile device to help you feel confident, represented and connected in video meetings.

Sounding your best is also important for ensuring clear and effective communication in remote meetings. We’ll dive deeper into this topic in a later blog post as part of our three-part “Bringing your best self to Google Meet” series. The series will also include a blog post about how to look and sound your best with Google Meet Hardware. Stay tuned!

Virtual backgrounds

Virtual backgrounds enable you to eliminate distractions and add privacy – or fun – to your calls. You can choose to blur your background, select a static or animated image curated by Google or upload your own. Admins can also provide a set of custom backgrounds for everyone in your organisation to use, helping to create a more professional and consistent brand image during meetings. These backgrounds could include your company logo, show off your office or feature high-quality images of your products and services.

For something truly unique, ask Gemini to generate a custom AI-generated background* based on a prompt describing what you’d like to see, such as “An illustration of a magical forest”. You can also choose from a list of styles, like “Photography” or “3D animation”, to customise the image even further. Gemini will generate multiple suggestions based on your prompt and you can pick your favourite.

A short video of a user demonstrating how the 360-degree video backgrounds in Google Meet on mobile work. As the user moves their device, the background moves with them.

If you’re joining a meeting from a mobile device, try Google’s range of 360-degree video backgrounds to transport yourself to a beach, a temple – or just about anywhere else. These backgrounds move with you as you move your device for a more dynamic and engaging meeting experience.

Video effects

A short video divided into three sections showing some of the filter effects available in Google Meet: on the left-hand side, a woman is using the “loghead” filter; in the middle, she is using the “strawberry” filter; and, on the right, she is using the “working bunny” filter.

Filters and styles provide another way to add fun and creativity into your meetings. Transform into a 🐱 cat, 👽 alien, 🐰 rabbit and more, or experiment with various light and colour filters like “greyscale”, “cloudy day” and “sunlight”.

A short video of a user enabling portrait touch-up mode in Google Meet on the web. The user is in the “Effects” menu and is looking at the “Appearance” tab. They have clicked the toggle next to “Portrait touch-up” to turn it on and selected the “Smooth” mode from the dropdown menu. On the left-hand side of the screenshot, the user’s self view is displayed and their appearance is subtly enhanced.

Portrait touch-up enables you to subtly enhance your appearance before or during meetings with complexion smoothing, under-eye lightening and eye whitening. It has two modes – “Subtle” and “Smoothing” – and is available on both web and mobile.

A short video of a user in the Google Meet green room. The video begins with the user applying an animated background effect called “Winter cabin” from the “Effects” interface. As they add the effect, a “Layer” icon appears on the bottom-right of their video tile with a “1” overlaid. They then navigate to the “Filters” category and select an AR filter which makes it look like they are wearing a hat and scarf. The “Layer” icon now shows the number “2”, indicating that they are using two effects.

Google Meet lets you combine multiple video effect types for even further customisation. Get creative and apply a background, filter, style and a portrait touch-up mode at the same time to create your ideal look whilst keeping your surroundings private. As you apply effects, a layer icon will appear on your video tile to help you track the number of effects you’re using.

Video quality and framing

A short video of a user in the Google Meet green room on the web. A prompt asking the user if they want to use Full HD appears. The user turns it on and a badge reading “1080p” can be seen on the top right corner of their video feed.

If you have a 1080p camera, Meet will prompt you to send your video feed in the higher resolution option before joining a meeting. The 1080p option is off by default and can be toggled on and off via the Meet settings menu. It is only used if at least one other participant has pinned your feed on a screen large enough to display the full 1080p video feed; otherwise, it will lower the resolution to save on bandwidth.

A short video of a user in the Google Meet green room for a meeting called “Team meeting”. At the start of the video, the user is far away from their camera and off-centre in their video frame. Meet detects this and automatically zooms in onto the user and centres them within their frame.

If you’re too far away from your camera or not centred in your video tile, Meet is able to frame your video before you join a meeting. This ensures you are clearly visible and are represented equally alongside other participants. The camera framing adjustment is made only once to avoid distractions. However, if you move around during the meeting and are no longer centred, you can manually recentre yourself from the Meet settings to stay well-positioned in your frame.

When using a camera that has built-in framing modes, like the Logitech Rally Bar Huddle or the Poly Studio P15, the device can dynamically adjust its focus to keep you in view as you move around during the meeting. This eliminates the need to manually reframe yourself each time you change positions, making it easier for other participants to see your facial expressions at all times and reducing the amount of empty background space.

AI enhancements

A short video demonstrating the automatic light adjustment feature in action during a Google Meet call. The call includes twelve participant video feeds, some of which are poorly lit and underexposed. Google Meet automatically detects these underexposed feeds and enhances the brightness of each one simultaneously, making the participants easier to see.

The automatic light adjustment feature allows Meet to detect and adjust underexposed video feeds, making sure you can be seen clearly and remain well-lit throughout the call. It can be particularly useful in instances where you have too much light behind you, such as a window on a sunny day, and your camera is struggling to capture your face clearly.

A short video of a user demonstrating how to use the Gemini studio look feature in Google Meet. The user is looking at their self- view from the effects panel. On the right-hand side, under the “Appearance” tab, the user turns the “Studio look” feature on with a toggle. This increases the sharpness of the user’s video and puts them in focus.

Gemini’s studio look* feature enhances your appearance in meetings by using AI to automatically increase sharpness. This helps ensure that you are always in focus, even in low-light conditions or when using low-quality webcams.

A short video of a user demonstrating how to use the Gemini studio lighting feature in Google Meet. The user is looking at their self- view from the effects panel. On the right-hand side, under the “Appearance” tab, the user turns the “Studio lighting” feature on with a toggle. The user selects “custom” from the dropdown and two adjustable settings appear. The user adjusts the position of “Light 1” and then changes the colour and brightness of “Light 2”.

Studio lighting* brings adjustable settings for lighting position, brightness and colour into Meet. You can use these settings to mimic studio-quality lighting and present yourself in the best way possible during a meeting.

Stay Tuned for Tips on Sounding Your Best in Google Meet

Want to know how you can sound your best in remote meetings? Stay tuned for the next part of our “Bringing your best self to Google Meet” series, where we will explore features like noise cancellation, adaptive audio and more.

As part of this series, we will also be covering how to look and sound your best from a meeting room with Google Meet Hardware.

*These features require select Gemini for Google Workspace add-ons. Compare the Gemini add-ons here.


Older Post Newer Post