Look & Sound Good: Camera Touch-Up, Auto-Light & Mic Cleanup in Zella

Animated webcam bubble with touch-up sparkle and clean-mic toggles

Quick answer: On the Mac, open Studio Settings → Camera (Look Good) and toggle Touch up (smooths/evens your skin), Auto light (brightens a dim camera automatically), and Mirror. For your mic, enable Noise cancellation, Mic boost, and Echo removal so you sound clean at capture time - before you even reach the editor. On iPhone, the thing you set before filming is the live background (blur, cut out or replace, visible in the viewfinder), and the voice work happens in the editor with Remove Noise and Polish Voice plus a voice tone.

On this page: what these do · touch up · auto light · mirror · mic cleanup · capture vs editor · on iPhone · where & when · impact · FAQ

The toggles below live in the Mac Setup panel. For the phone, jump to On iPhone.

What do these enhancements do?

These are capture-time switches, meaning they work while you record (not later, in the editor). They improve how you look and sound as you go, so your footage starts out good instead of needing to be fixed later. You’ll find them in the recording Setup panel → Studio → Camera tab, under the Look Good (and sound) controls.

Toggle	Affects	What it does
Touch up	Camera	Smooths and evens out your skin for a flattering look
Auto light	Camera	Brightens a dim webcam picture on its own
Mirror	Camera	Flips the camera so it matches how you see yourself
Noise cancellation	Mic	Removes steady background noise (fans, hum)
Mic boost	Mic	Raises the volume of a quiet microphone
Echo removal	Mic	Cuts down room echo (that hollow, bouncy sound)

How to use Touch up

Turn Touch up on in Studio Settings → Camera. It gently smooths and evens out your skin so you look polished on screen - no ring light or makeup needed. It’s meant to be subtle: a light touch, not a heavy filter.

How to use Auto light

Turn on Auto light to brighten your camera automatically when the room is dark. It lifts a dim webcam picture so your face is clearly lit even in poor lighting. (One thing to know: in a very dark room, a webcam also slows down its frame rate to let in more light, which can make video look choppy. Auto light helps with brightness, but adding a real lamp is still best for smooth video.)

Mirror

Mirror flips the camera left-to-right so it matches how you see yourself in a mirror. Turn it off when you’ll hold up text or a screen to the camera, otherwise the text will show up backwards.

How to clean up your microphone at capture

Under the same Look/Sound Good controls, turn on the mic switches:

Noise cancellation - removes steady background noise (air conditioning, fan hum, street sounds).
Mic boost - turns up a quiet mic so people can hear you.
Echo removal - cuts room echo so you don’t sound like you’re “far away.”

Set these before you record, and your raw audio comes out clean from the start.

Capture-time vs editor polish

Zella cleans up audio in two stages, and they work together:

Here (while recording): Noise cancellation, Mic boost, and Echo removal - applied live as you record.
In the editor: Polish Voice - a cleanup you run afterward that softens harsh “s” sounds, evens out the volume, and sets a standard loudness (about −14 LUFS, the level social media expects), plus Auto-Duck for music.

Use the recording switches to get a clean starting point; use Polish Voice in the editor for the final, broadcast-quality finish.

On iPhone

The phone splits the same two stages differently. The Look Good and mic pills above are Mac Studio Settings; here’s what to reach for on iOS.

Before you film: set the background

The one capture-time control you set in advance is the live background, and it’s a big one. Zella segments you on the Neural Engine as you record - no green screen - and shows the result in the viewfinder:

Blur - softly blur whatever’s behind you.
Cut out - remove the background entirely.
Replace - drop a different scene in behind you.

Set it before you hit record so you can see what you’re getting, though you can still change it later in the editor. Steps in recording on iPhone.

For your mic, the practical advice is the same as on any device: AirPods or a plugged-in mic beats the built-in mic in a noisy room.

In the editor: clean the sound

The voice polish is a tap rather than a pre-set switch:

Remove Noise - neural denoise under your speech.
Polish Voice - rumble control, mud dip, broadcast compression and loudness normalize, landing at the same broadcast level the Mac aims for.
Voice tone - pick the character in Cleanup → Voice tone: Natural, Warm, Bright, Podcast (the default) or Cinematic. Switch tone any time and the polish re-renders with the new voicing. Detail in sound on iPhone.

Auto-Polish runs both for you as part of its one-tap pass, so a raw take usually arrives already denoised and polished. See on-device AI.

In the editor: fix the background afterwards

Tapping Remove background in the editor drops you onto a soft bokeh backdrop - a finished studio look with no setup. From there switch to a plain cutout, a transparent plate, a blur of your own room, or any of the 40 built-in backdrops (20 stills and 20 animated).

Everything here works the same on iPhone.

Where and when to use these

Talking to the camera / camera-bubble recordings: Touch up + Auto light so you look good on any webcam.
Noisy rooms: Noise cancellation + Echo removal for clean narration.
Quiet mics or laptops: Mic boost so people can hear you.
Showing text to the camera: turn Mirror off.

What impact these have

For content creators and video editors, cleaning things up while recording means less to fix later and a stronger first impression:

You look finished even on a cheap webcam - Touch up + Auto light make you look higher-quality, which builds trust with viewers.
Clean audio from the start - recording with noise cancellation and echo removal means your narration is usable right away, and Polish Voice has a clean starting point to work with.
Fewer re-records - fixing lighting and noise while you record beats finding out a take is unusable when you’re already editing.

Animated waveform showing clean captured audio

Look & sound FAQ

How do I look better on my webcam in Zella? Turn on Touch up and Auto light in Studio Settings → Camera (Look Good).

How do I remove background noise from my microphone? Enable Noise cancellation (and Echo removal) in the same Look/Sound Good controls before recording.

My mic is too quiet - what do I do? Turn on Mic boost.

What’s the difference between this and Polish Voice? These run while you record; Polish Voice is a cleanup you run in the editor afterward (softening harsh “s” sounds, evening out volume, setting −14 LUFS loudness). Use both for the best result.

Why does text look backwards on my camera? Mirror is on - turn it off when you’re showing text to the camera.

What do I set before recording on my iPhone? The live background - blur, cut out or replace - which you see in the viewfinder as you film. See recording on iPhone.

How do I clean up my voice on the phone? Run Remove Noise and Polish Voice in the editor, and pick a voice tone (Natural, Warm, Bright, Podcast, Cinematic) in Cleanup → Voice tone. Auto-Polish does both in one tap.

Pro tips & gotchas

These are capture-time switches - they fix lighting and noise while you record, so the take starts clean.
Stack Touch up + Auto light to look finished even on a cheap webcam.
For noisy rooms, use Noise cancellation + Echo removal; for quiet mics, use Mic boost.
Use these and the editor’s Polish Voice - a clean recording plus an editor finish is the best combo.
On the phone, set the background before you record and leave the voice work to Remove Noise and Polish Voice afterwards - or just tap Auto-Polish and get both.