---
title: How do I smooth my skin on camera (the Touch up slider)?
question: smooth my skin on camera
area: video
audience: beginner
surface: desktop
keywords: [touch up, skin smoothing, smooth skin, retouch, beauty filter, airbrush, soften, blur skin, makeup filter, look better on camera, face smoothing, zoom touch up]
related: [how-do-i-record-footage, what-can-the-video-editor-do, how-do-i-run-the-video-team, where-do-i-find-the-finished-video]
updated: 2026-07-21
---

# How do I smooth my skin on camera (the Touch up slider)?

When you record with your camera, the recorder popover has a **Touch up** slider. Drag it up and codus gently smooths your skin, much like Zoom's Touch Up. It works on your face only, so your eyes, hair and the background stay sharp. It is a subtle retouch, not a heavy filter, and the smoothing is baked into the finished video when the team edits it.

## Before you start

- **Touch up** only appears once a camera is selected in the recorder. It has nothing to smooth without a camera.
- It applies to a camera talking-head, or to the round camera bubble on a screen recording. See [How do I record footage for a video?](how-do-i-record-footage.md).
- For the smoothing to end up in your video, the recording needs to be edited (see the note below).

## Step by step

1. Open the recorder (the **rec** button in the top bar, or **Film footage** on a project).
2. Choose **camera** as the source, or pick a **Camera bubble** on a screen or window recording.
3. Find the **Touch up** row under the camera preview. Drag the slider from **off** up to the strength you want, shown as a percentage. It moves in steps of 5.
4. Record as normal.

A gentle setting looks natural. Pushing it high starts to look plastic, so a light touch reads better on screen.

## Where the smoothing actually happens

This is the one thing worth understanding. The little live preview in the popover is an approximation, only there so you can see roughly what you are choosing. The real, high-quality smoothing is applied later, when the video team edits the recording, before it places your camera on screen. So:

- With **Edit automatically** on (or if you run the team on the recording afterwards), your chosen strength is baked into the finished video in **Versions**.
- If you keep the raw, unedited clip and never let the team edit it, it is not smoothed. The smoothing is part of the edit, not the raw file.

## Face tracking

On a capable Mac, codus tracks your face frame by frame so it only smooths skin and leaves your eyes, brows, lips, hair and the whole background untouched. Under the slider it confirms "Face tracking on". If your Mac cannot do the face tracking, it falls back to a gentler basic mode and says so, which still softens but is less precise.

## How do I know it worked?

- In the popover, the **Touch up** value reads a percentage rather than **off**, and the note under it says face tracking is on.
- In the finished render (the **Versions** tab), your skin looks smoother while your eyes, hair and background stay crisp.

## Common problems

**"There is no Touch up slider."** No camera is selected. Pick a camera, or add a **Camera bubble**, and the slider appears.

**"My raw recording is not smoothed."** The smoothing is applied during editing, not to the raw file. Make sure **Edit automatically** was on, or run the team on the recording, then check the render in **Versions**.

**"It says face tracking is unavailable."** codus falls back to a basic smoothing mode on Macs that cannot run the face tracking. It still works, only less precisely. Restarting codus can let it try the full mode again.

**"It looks too smooth and fake."** Lower the slider. Something gentle, well under halfway, keeps skin looking real.