The macosxhints Rating:
[Score: 9 out of 10]
- Developer: ecamm / [Product Page]
- Price: $8.00
iGlasses is an iChat plug-in (it's installed in the /Library -> InputManagers folder) that offers much greater control over your iSight (it also activates video conferencing on machines slower than Apple's required G3/600MHz limit). A small floating palette (which can be closed when not in use) offers a set of useful presets, including enhanced, extra bright, super bright, black & white, sepia, crazy colors (rotates through the color palette, tinting your image in cycles), macro focus (for extreme closeups!), and night vision (for using the iSight in pitch blackness). You can also check boxes to invert the image (useful if you want to mount your camera upside down) and/or mirror the image. How well does it work? Quite well, as you can see here:

That's my cat sleeping on the floor of the den. On the left is the iSight with its standard settings. The middle picture is using iGlasses' "extra bright" setting, and the far right is set to "super bright." As you can see in the images, as you add light, you also add noise. However, there's no disputing the fact that the image on the right would make a usable video chat picture, whereas the one on the left would not. Of course, my cat can't talk, so video chats with him tend to be quite boring.
If that's not enough tweakability for you, iGlasses offers a full set of manual controls over brightness, edge enhancement, focus, gain, hue, saturation, shutter speed, and image temperature. It's a true control addict's dream (or nightmare, if you constantly like to fiddle). The only thing I marked it down from '10' for was that you can't easily see the currently active setting -- it'd be nice to know that I have 'enhanced' active, for instance. But if you use your iSight a lot in low light situations, or just want a useful tweak tool to get the most out of the camera, iGlasses is well worth the $8.00 asking price (and in my opinion, this functionality should be bundled with iChat, or at least included when you purchase an iSight). There's even a seven-day no-limits demo, so you can test it out for yourself first.

