Create unmirrored Photo Booth movies

Jan 27, '09 07:30:04AM

Contributed by: macosnoob

Although Photo Booth 2.0.3 allows one to flip (Command-F) previously captured photos and auto-flip (Shift-Command-F) new photos to an unmirrored -- "correct," some would say -- orientation, the application makes no such provision for movies made with Photo Booth. Other applications, such as QuickTime Pro and iMovie, do create unmirrored video, but lack the real-time access to image effects that Photo Booth provides.

A recent question in the macosxhints forums, and some similar posts in Apple forums, sent me in search of a Photo Booth solution. It turned out to take only a small tweak to one Quartz composition inside the Photo Booth application package to produce unmirrored movies. Note that to edit the Quartz composition, you'll need Xcode installed.

  1. Make a backup of Photo Booth so that you can return easily to the application's original behavior if desired.
  2. Control-click on the Photo Booth application, pick Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu, then navigate into the Contents » Resources folder. Double-click on Effect.qtz within that folder to open it in Quartz Composer.
  3. Locate the left-most Flip patch. Select it and click the Patch Parameters gear.
  4. Uncheck the 'Flip' box.
  5. Save Effect.qtz and quit Quartz Composer.
Movies (and photos, too) produced with the modified Photo Booth will now be unmirrored. However, Photo Booth's nine-up preview mosaic of effects remains unchanged, and will still show mirrored images -- a minor anomaly that can also probably be corrected with the adjustment of another 'flip' patch yet to be located somewhere in Photo Booth's quartz compositions.

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Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090125141307324