OS X Mavericks: The Missing Manual

Photo Booth

It may be goofy, it may be pointless, but the Photo Booth program is a bigger time drain than Solitaire, the Web, and Dancing with the Stars put together.

It’s a match made in heaven for any Mac with a video camera above the screen, but you can also use it with a camcorder, iSight, or Webcam. (Photo Booth doesn’t even open if your Mac doesn’t have some kind of camera.)

Open this program and then peer into the camera. Photo Booth acts like a digital mirror, showing whatever the camera sees—that is, you.

But then click the Effects button. You enter a world of special visual effects—and we’re talking very special. Some make you look like a pinhead, or bulbous, or like a Siamese twin; others simulate Andy Warhol paintings, fisheye lenses, and charcoal sketches (Figure 11-22). In fact, there are five whole pages of effects, nine previews on a page. (The last two pages hold backdrop effects, described below.)

To page through them, click the left or right arrow buttons, or press or , or swipe with two fingers on your trackpad (one finger on the Magic Mouse).

The first page contains eight effects, some of which use sophisticated face-recognition smarts to track your face as it moves around the frame. That’s how Dizzy and Lovestruck are able to keep the animated birds or hearts circling ...