Cam Tweak

A virtual camera for Windows

Step back.
Without moving.

Your webcam, the way you want to be seen. Cam Tweak makes you smaller in the picture and moves you where you like, blurs or replaces the background and fixes the colors. Teams and other video apps simply see a camera called “CamTweak”. Everything runs on your own PC, with no account and no cloud.

Install for Windows Read the docs

Free and open source. Windows 11, any webcam.

Weekly sync · Camera: CamTweak
Sam · CamTweak

50–100 %your size in the picture, anchored at the bottom edge, so you never float
5 msper frame for the AI cut-out on a laptop GPU, with DirectML. Works on the CPU as well.
1080p, 30 fpsfrom the virtual camera, also as 720p and 360p for apps that ask for less
0 bytesin the cloud. Your picture goes to your meeting and nowhere else.

What it does

The picture you would set up yourself.

Laptop cameras sit close and show your face larger than life. Cam Tweak gives you the distance, the background and the colors you want, before your picture reaches the call.

Make yourself smaller

Scale the picture down to half its size. It shrinks toward the bottom center, so your shoulders stay at the lower edge. Move it left, right, up or down with a slider, or drag it in the preview.

Blur it, color it, or bring a picture

An AI model cuts you out on your graphics card. Blur the room, fill it with a solid color (green for chroma key) or put a picture of your own behind you.

Record the empty room once

Step out of the picture for a few seconds. Cam Tweak compares every frame with the empty room: the edges of the cut-out get sharper, and the blur shows no ghost of you.

Fix the colors

Brightness, contrast, saturation and color temperature, for the camera that never gets them quite right. One click on the tray icon, changes apply at once.

Compared

Why not the effects in Teams?

Teams can blur or replace your background by itself, and for that alone it may be all you need. What it cannot do is move you further away.

Cam TweakTeams background effectsOBS Studio virtual camera
Make yourself smalleryes, with one slidernoyes, by building a scene
Blur and replace the backgroundyes, AI cut-out on your GPUyeswith a plugin
Sharper edges from the empty roomyesnono
Works inTeams and other apps that let you pick a cameraonly Teamsapps that let you pick a camera
Setupone line in PowerShell, then sliders in the traybuilt inscenes, sources and filters
Costfree and open source (MIT)part of Teamsfree and open source (GPL)

If you use Cam Tweak's background, turn off the background effect in Teams, so the picture is not cut out twice.

Privacy

Your picture stays on your PC until it reaches the call.

Every step from the webcam to the virtual camera happens on your own computer. Cam Tweak has no account, sends no data and needs no internet after setup.

  1. Webcam

    The real camera is only on while an app uses “CamTweak” or the preview is open, so its light goes off when nobody watches.

  2. Cut-out

    The MediaPipe Selfie Segmenter runs through ONNX Runtime on your graphics card, or on the CPU. The model file comes with the setup.

  3. Your picture

    Size, position, background and colors are applied frame by frame, in memory.

  4. Virtual camera

    The result goes to the camera “CamTweak”, which Teams reads like any webcam. Settings stay in your Windows profile, the recorded empty room in %LOCALAPPDATA%\CamTweak.

no network code: Cam Tweak's source has no web requests, sockets or update checks. Check it on GitHub.

Install

Three steps, one question from Windows.

One line downloads the setup of the latest release and runs it. Windows asks once for permission, because a virtual camera is registered for the whole PC. Remove Cam Tweak any time under Settings › Apps.

  1. Open PowerShell

    Press the Windows key, type PowerShell and press Enter. Terminal works too.

  2. Paste the line below

    It downloads the setup from the latest release (15 MB) and installs it. Read the script first if you like; it is short.

  3. Choose “CamTweak” in Teams

    Under Settings › Devices › Camera. Then click the camera icon in the tray to set your size, background and colors.

# in PowerShell or Terminal; run it again to update
powershell -c "irm https://applirado.github.io/camtweak/install.ps1 | iex"
  • Windows 11, 64-bit
  • Any webcam
  • A DirectX 12 graphics card for the cut-out, or the CPU
  • About 40 MB of disk space

Rather download the setup? CamTweak-<version>.msi is on the releases page, also for distribution with Intune. It is not signed yet, so when you open it from the browser, Windows SmartScreen asks first: choose More info › Run anyway.