The Visual Lounge lets you find out about TechSmith behind-the-scenes. Watch screencasts and videos from other customers, meet up with your fellow TechSmith users and staff, and get more tips and tricks!

I have an apology to make to you. I've subjected you to bad webcam video in some of our screencasts. Remember back when Brooks Andrus and I made a screencast at PF Changs? Check out a screenshot of the webcam video below. It's bad, bad, bad! And, I'm sorry.

When I can, I try to use the better DV Camera I have versus my webcam, but if I'm traveling, I don't always want to carry the bigger DV camera, tripod and other gear. And, I always have the webcam hooked up in the office so often out of convenience, I like to use the webcam.

Well, I was excited to see this blog post over at Strobist blog. This is a blog post worthy of a bookmark!

And, you'll see how you can improve the picture from your webcam with a few simple tweaks. 5 tweaks to be exact:

1. For Pete's Sake, Don't Use Your Monitor as a Light Source
2. Soften the Light
3. Kill the Computer's Reflection in Your Eyes
4. Give Your Webcam What it Wants
5. Clean Up Your Background

Any tips you have to add to get better quality video from your webcam? Oh, and after getting tips from the Strobist, I promise I won't make you watch red webcam images anymore.