Camera

Record with your camera

Camera starts on for new recordings. Its preview appears before Start so you can check your framing. Click its on/off toggle in the capture bar, or press ⌥⇧C, to change it; Slyve remembers your choice. Settings › Recording › Start new recordings with camera changes the same default.

If permission is missing, choose Allow camera beside the device menu. You can still press Start to record your screen: the status line reports that the camera was skipped, and your preference stays on for a future take. When the camera is turned off, the bar says Camera off. With no connected camera, it says No camera and its toggle is off. Taking a screenshot never starts the camera or microphone. See Permissions.

The camera records at 720p unless you choose another size. If your camera can record more, its menu in the capture bar lists 720p, 1080p and 4K, showing only the sizes it supports. Slyve remembers your choice. If you switch to a camera that cannot record the saved size, it records at 720p.

Shadow

The camera uses the recording’s shadow by default. To change the camera’s shadow separately, open More in the Camera tab (⌘3) and turn on Own shadow, then set its Strength, Angle, Distance and Softness. It starts with the recording’s settings, so the preview does not jump. Turn Own shadow off to use the recording’s shadow again. Each change can be undone with ⌘Z.

Layout

Open the Camera tab (⌘3) and pick a layout:

• Bubble: you in a bubble over the screen. Drag it in the preview to move it, or drag a corner to resize it.
• Stacked: the screen above, you below, edge to edge. Vertical videos start stacked.
• Side by side: the screen on the left, you on the right.
• Screen: just the screen.
• Camera: just you, filling the frame.
• Cutout: you without your background, over the screen.

On a landscape video, Stacked and Side by side fit the whole screen recording into the screen’s part of the frame, with background around it, so nothing is cut off. For Stacked and Side by side, Camera share sets how much of the frame is yours. Turn on Keep screen text still to keep the screen at its full size and slide your side over its far edge instead.

Dodge the cursor

Turn on Dodge the cursor and zooms in the Camera tab’s Layout section to keep your bubble out of the way. When the cursor stays on the bubble for more than 0.3 s, the bubble slides to the nearest free corner in 0.35 s, and slides back 1 s after the cursor leaves. It moves at most once every 2 s. It never changes your layout changes on the Camera lane, and a camera that fills the frame (or half of it) never dodges. With Reduce Motion on, it moves without sliding. The preview and the export match.

Move and resize the screen and camera yourself

Click the screen recording or the camera on the preview to select it. It gets an outline with handles at its corners and sides.

• Drag it to move it. It snaps to the centre, the edges and the safe margin of the frame, and to the other tile’s edges, with a thin guide line. Hold ⌘ while you drag to place it freely.
• Drag a corner to resize it. The screen always keeps its own shape. The camera keeps its shape too; hold ⇧ to change it (a circle stays a circle). Hold ⌥ to resize from the centre.
• Press the arrow keys to nudge it by 1 point, or ⇧ and an arrow to nudge it by 10.
• Double-click it to put it back where the layout puts it. Press Return or Esc to deselect it.

Each drag is one step to undo. The placement belongs to the beat under the playhead, so each beat can have its own, and the move between two beats carries the screen and camera from one place to the other. Dragging in Stacked or Side by side makes that beat’s layout Custom. Picking a layout puts both back where that layout puts them. The exact position and size are under More in the Background card (the screen) and the Camera card (the camera), with Reset placement.

Changing the aspect ratio or the size of the video never cuts your screen recording or your camera: the screen is fitted inside the frame with the background around it, and your camera keeps its shape and its place in proportion. To fill a vertical or square frame and crop the sides instead, choose Centre or Follow the action under Framing in the aspect menu.

Change the layout during the video

Each beat on the Camera lane can have its own layout. Move the playhead to where the layout should change and click + New beat at playhead, then pick that beat’s layout. Double-click the camera bubble on the preview to start a beat there where you fill the frame. Drag the edge between two chips on the lane to change when the switch happens.

For each beat after the first, Move in sets how it arrives: Cut, or a move of 350, 500 or 800 ms. A new beat moves in over 350 ms. During a move the screen makes room before you arrive, and you leave before the screen takes the room back, so the camera never lands on top of the screen. Between two layouts that both show you, the camera travels from one place to the other, changing size, corners and crop as it goes: a bubble in the bottom left grows into the Stacked strip instead of jumping. Preview move plays the switch, and Use for every beat gives every beat after the first the same move. With Reduce motion turned on in macOS, a new beat cuts in.

When a move isn’t a cut, Comes in from sets where the camera enters, or leaves by, when a beat adds or removes it (to or from Screen): Auto slides it in from the edge of the frame nearest its place, the arrows (left, right, top and bottom) slide it from that edge, and Scale grows it from the middle of its place. Projects from before this choice use Auto.

Every change is one step you can undo, and the export matches the preview.

Framing

Framing sets which part of your camera shows. Each layout keeps its own framing, so a close crop in Side by side does not change your Bubble. Slyve does not change the recorded camera file.

• Face keeps your face in frame. Headroom sets the space above your head.
• Manual aims where you choose: use Across and Up and down, or hold ⌥ and drag the bubble in the preview.
• Closer crops in, up to 300%.
• Shape sets the bubble’s shape: 1:1, 4:5, 4:3, 16:9 or Custom.

Under On every output, small sketches show the layout at 16:9, 9:16 and 1:1. If a crop enlarges your camera beyond its recorded resolution, Slyve warns you that it may look soft. Reset framing goes back to the default framing for that layout.

What is behind you

• Original: your camera as it was.
• Background blur: softens the room behind you. Set how strong it is.
• Cutout: show only you, with no room behind you.
• Your own picture: choose an image to put behind you.

Colour looks

Looks, framing, mirror and roundness are under More at the foot of the Camera card.

Choose a built-in camera look or import a .cube LUT, then set its strength. The look is saved with each take and carries into an editable project you share.

Under the look, Exposure brightens or darkens the camera by up to two stops, and White balance makes it warmer or cooler. Both apply before the look. The Recipe line spells out what is set, for example “Warm · 75% · +0.3 EV”.

Skin highlight clipping checks the look on your own camera from the take. If the look turns part of your skin plain white, it says how much, so you can lower Exposure or Strength. Turn on Compare with the original to see the camera as recorded beside the camera with the look.

My looks

Choose Save look to keep the camera’s look under a name you type. A saved look keeps the look or LUT, its strength, the exposure and the white balance. Tap it in any project to use it again.

To use a look on another Mac, choose its export button. Slyve saves a .slyvelook file that includes its LUT, so the other Mac does not need the original .cube file. Open it there with Import look….

If the take has no camera, the Camera tab is dimmed.