Surface Camera too dark

Anonymous
2020-04-21T01:15:05+00:00

The front camera on my Windows 10 Surface Pro 3 was too dark in Zoom (and in the Camera app). There are many folks asking how to adjust the brightness, but none of the answers in the posts I found work and all the posts were closed.

I discovered how to adjust the brightness:

  1. Open the camera app. (Home, Camera)
  2. Click on Settings in the upper left corner.
  3. Under Camera, Pro Mode, Show advanced controls for photos and videos - click to "On".
  4. On the right side of the window, select the video camera icon.
  5. A little circle with a slash through it and a number below it will appear on the left side of the window.

    Click on this icon and a brightness slider bar will appear. Adjust the brightness to what you want.

  1. Close the camera app.
  2. Open Zoom and the new camera brightness should be in effect there, too.
Surface | Surface Pro | Sound and camera

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-05-20T15:47:27+00:00

    Worked perfectly, thanks!

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-05-29T20:33:35+00:00

    When I clicked the settings icon, I couldn't get options. at first- I was in full screen mode.  When my husband restored down the view (not minimize), the options appeared right below the tool icon.  There I could select pro mode and then a brightness adjustment appeared..

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-06-04T01:46:33+00:00

    great! thanks!!

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-06-11T19:17:08+00:00

    Note that you have to update the Camera app to the latest version through the Microsoft Store to get the advanced controls. The older versions don't have it.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-06-12T14:58:01+00:00

    I have a Surface Pro 3 that is maybe 5 or 6 years old. Some suggestions to increase the camera brightness said to click on the Settings icon in the Camera App. However, when I did that, nothing showed up--the icon just went away until I clicked on the image again. I found these steps increased the brightness of the camera:

    1. Go to Settings.
    2. Select Display.
    3. There is a section for Windows HD Color.
    4. Select:  Windows HD Color Settings.
    5. There is a section titled Battery Options.
    6. Select:  Optimize for Image Quality.

    Once you do this, and open the Camera app again, when I click on the Settings icon all the options magically show up. From there, you can click on the HDR, and one of the options is to increase the brightness. So far it seems that it saves these settings--as some people have said one they increase the brightness in the app, and then open their streaming service like Zoom or Skype, the camera reverts back to the original settings.

    Why does a person need to do so much research to fix things on their own? This has been so frustrating as I have done many Zoom meetings, and gave up doing them on my Surface because my image was so dark. Going on a Zoom meeting in 5 minutes so hope this works.

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