# Cheese Manual

Cheese uses your webcam to take photos and videos, applies fancy special effects and lets you share the fun with others.

2007-2009
Daniel G. Siegel (dgsiegel@gnome.org)
Jaap A. Haitsma (jaap@haitsma.org)
Filippo Argiolas (fargiolas@gnome.org)
Felix Kaser (f.kaser@gmx.net)

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation Licence (GFDL), Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. You can find a copy of the GFDL at this link or in the file COPYING-DOCS distributed with this manual.

This manual is part of a collection of GNOME manuals distributed under the GFDL. If you want to distribute this manual separately from the collection, you can do so by adding a copy of the licence to the manual, as described in section 6 of the licence.

Many of the names used by companies to distinguish their products and services are claimed as trademarks. Where those names appear in any GNOME documentation, and the members of the GNOME Documentation Project are made aware of those trademarks, then the names are in capital letters or initial capital letters.

DOCUMENT AND MODIFIED VERSIONS OF THE DOCUMENT ARE PROVIDED UNDER THE TERMS OF THE GNU FREE DOCUMENTATION LICENCE WITH THE FURTHER UNDERSTANDING THAT:

1. DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES THAT THE DOCUMENT OR MODIFIED VERSION OF THE DOCUMENT IS FREE OF DEFECTS MERCHANTABLE, FIT FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGING. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY, ACCURACY, AND PERFORMANCE OF THE DOCUMENT OR MODIFIED VERSION OF THE DOCUMENT IS WITH YOU. SHOULD ANY DOCUMENT OR MODIFIED VERSION PROVE DEFECTIVE IN ANY RESPECT, YOU (NOT THE INITIAL WRITER, AUTHOR OR ANY CONTRIBUTOR) ASSUME THE COST OF ANY NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. THIS DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY CONSTITUTES AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THIS LICENSE. NO USE OF ANY DOCUMENT OR MODIFIED VERSION OF THE DOCUMENT IS AUTHORISED HEREUNDER EXCEPT UNDER THIS DISCLAIMER; AND

2. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES AND UNDER NO LEGAL THEORY, WHETHER IN TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), CONTRACT, OR OTHERWISE, SHALL THE AUTHOR, INITIAL WRITER, ANY CONTRIBUTOR, OR ANY DISTRIBUTOR OF THE DOCUMENT OR MODIFIED VERSION OF THE DOCUMENT, OR ANY SUPPLIER OF ANY OF SUCH PARTIES, BE LIABLE TO ANY PERSON FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY CHARACTER INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF GOODWILL, WORK STOPPAGE, COMPUTER FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION, OR ANY AND ALL OTHER DAMAGES OR LOSSES ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO USE OF THE DOCUMENT AND MODIFIED VERSIONS OF THE DOCUMENT, EVEN IF SUCH PARTY SHALL HAVE BEEN INFORMED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

Joshua
Henderson
joshhendo@gmail.com
Jaap
Haitsma
jaap@haitsma.org
Felix
Kaser
f.kaser@gmx.net
0.1
2007-12-04

Jaap A. Haitsma jaap@haitsma.org

Jaap A. Haitsma

0.2
2008-01-12

Jaap A. Haitsma jaap@haitsma.org

Joshua Henderson joshhendo@gmail.com

Jaap A. Haitsma

0.3
2008-08-20

Jaap A. Haitsma jaap@haitsma.org

Joshua Henderson joshhendo@gmail.com

Jaap A. Haitsma

0.4
2009-07-15

Jaap A. Haitsma jaap@haitsma.org

Joshua Henderson joshhendo@gmail.com

Felix Kaser f.kaser@gmx.net

Jaap A. Haitsma

0.5
2009-09-14

Felix Kaser f.kaser@gmx.net

Felix Kaser

## Feedback

To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding the Cheese application or this manual, follow the directions in the Cheese project page.

## Introduction

Cheese uses your webcam to take photos and videos, applies fancy special effects and lets you share the fun with others.

## Usage

The main screen of Cheese supports two different layouts at the moment. The default looks like the screenshot below, it has the preview image centered and the thumbnail slideshow below.

### Cheese screenshot

Especially for Cheese-users with small displays, like the ones in netbooks, we have designed another view. It is more horizontally aligned, in order to fit better on small widescreen displays. The wide-view is shown in the screenshot below.

### Cheese wide screenshot

Cheese uses the photo mode by defaults, but you can change this to use the video or burst mode if desired.

### Effects

To apply effects to the input of your webcam, click the button labelled Effects. When you then go to the effects window, you will see a window similar to the image below.

#### Cheese effects screenshot

You can apply some really cool effects to your photos too! Just choose from the several different effects available and click its corresponding button to apply it to your photo. Selecting multiple effects will apply all the effects to your image. For example, if you select Hulk and Vertical Flip, the input from the webcam will be altered to have a green shade and be upside down. To disable all effects, just click on the No Effect button.

To return to the preview of your webcam, just push the button labelled Effects again. This will toggle the Effects menu and bring you back to the normal view.

### Photo Mode

Photo mode is the default mode for Cheese. When not in photo mode, click the button that shows the icon of a single photo or select it from the menu: Cheese Photo to change to photo mode. Photo mode will take a single photo every time the button labelled Take a photo or the Spacebar key is pressed, and will save to disk.

### Video Mode

Video mode is a mode that allows you to take short videos using the webcam. When not in video mode, click the button that shows the icon of a film roll or select it from the menu: Cheese Video to change to video mode. Video mode will start recording a video every time the button labelled Start Recording or the Spacebar is pressed. The video will stop recording and save to disk when the button labelled Stop Recording or the Spacebar is pressed.

The video mode does not look much different from the photo mode, except that the button labelled Take a photo will say Start Recording or Stop Recording, and the button with the film roll icon is pushed in, whereas the other mode buttons (photo and burst) are not.

### Burst Mode

In burst mode you can take more pictures in a row. It works exactly like the photo mode, except that it takes a series of pictures. When you are not in burst mode, click the button that shows the icon of several pictures in a row or select it from the menu: Cheese Burst to change to burst mode. Burst mode will start to take a series of pictures with an interval of some seconds in between photos when the button labelled Take Multiple Photos or the Spacebar key is pressed. The delay and amount of pictures to take can be set in the preferences dialog. For more information please see .

All modes can be used in fullscreen. To do this, click the Cheese Fullscreen menu to enter fullscreen mode, or press the F11 key. To exit fullscreen mode, press the Esc or the F11 keys.

#### Cheese fullscreen screenshot

## Working with photos and videos

### Taking a photo

To take a photo with Cheese, be sure to be in the “Photo” mode.

It's easy to take photos with special effects. Just click the button labelled Effects, and click on the effects desired as described in . You should now have the effects that you chose applied to the webcam input. Press the effects button again to get back to the normal view.

To take a photo, press the button labelled Take a photo or press the spacebar key. Alternatively, you can also use the webcam capture button, if your webcam has one. You will then see Cheese count down from 3 or instantly take the photo, depending on your settings. When the photo is taken, your entire screen will flash white, and the photo that was just taken will appear in the photo stream at the bottom of the program's window. To abort the countdown you can use the Esc key.

### Recording a video

To record a video in Cheese, make sure that the Video button has been pressed.

To start recording a video, press the button labelled Start Recording or press the Spacebar key. Alternatively, you can also use the webcam capture button, if your webcam has one. To stop recording just press the same button, now labelled Stop Recording, and the recording will stop and the video saved.

If your video appears to be jerky or has a low frame rate (only updating the picture every few seconds), it does not mean that the recording has a similar frame rate. In many cases, the recorded file will have a better frame rate.

### Taking a series of pictures in burst mode

To take more than one picture over some time you can use the burst mode. Burst mode can be set up in the preferences dialog where you can also set the amount of pictures you want to take and the delay in seconds between them. You can find more information about that in .

To start the burst mode, press the button labelled Take Multiple Photos or press the Spacebar key. Alternatively, you can also use the webcam capture button, if your webcam has one. To stop the burst capture you can use the Esc key.

## Setting up Cheese

### The preferences dialog

The preferences dialog allows you to set up some webcam specific parameters and parameters specific to the burst mode. If you have more than one webcam or video device attached to your system, the preferences dialog allows you to choose which one you would like to use for Cheese and what resolution the image should have. Use the sliders to play around with the brightness, contrast, saturation and hue values to find the best for your webcam.

#### Cheese preferences screenshot

The parameters for the burst mode can be set in the preferences dialog as well. You only have to adjust the values for the number of photos you wish to take and the delay in seconds between each picture taken.

### GConf settings

It's possible to define where Cheese stores the captured media (photos and videos). These settings are stored in GConf. You can change the settings with the `gconf-editor`, application. There you have to select /apps/cheese in the tree on the left. Then you can set the video_path and photo_path to the location you prefer. There you can also set other parameters for Cheese, but you should use the preferences dialog for a controlled access.

Attention: Be careful while using GConf to change your settings! If you are not completely sure about what you are doing, you should ask someone who knows!

## Sharing Photos and Videos

### Viewing a photo or video

To view a video or photo that has been taken, locate it in the photo stream and double click it. Alternatively, you can right click on it and select Open. This will then open the file in the default application for that file type.

### Saving photos and videos to an alternate location

To save a photo to an alternate place on your system where you can easily find them, find the photo or video that you wish to save in the photo stream, right click on it and select Save As from the pop-up menu. This will bring up a standard Save File dialog that will allow you to save it to a new location as well as rename it if you so wish to do.

### Deleting a photo

To delete a photo from the photo stream, locate the photo you wish to delete in the photo stream, left click on it once and press the delete button on your keyboard. Alternatively, you can right click on it and select Delete from the pop-up menu.

You will be asked if you wish to delete it from the photo stream. To confirm, press the button labelled Move to Trash.

This will move the image to the "trash", as well as remove from your photo stream. This will not remove the photo from your computer. To remove it from your system, you will need to empty your trash.

### Send a photo by e-mail

Photos can be directly emailed from Cheese. You will need to have the default mail client set up with an email account. To email a photo, locate the photo in the photo stream, right click on it and select Send by Mail.

This will open the default mail client (for example, Evolution) and a new email message will be created with the photo you selected as an attachment.

### Set as Account Photo

To set a photo as your account photo (which can be viewed from the System Preferences About Me menu, and the login window with a list of user names with photos), locate the photo that you wish to use in Cheese, right click on it and select Set as Account Photo.

### Export a photo to F-Spot

To export a photo to F-Spot, locate the photo in your photo stream, right click on it and select Export to F-Spot. You will then be prompted by F-Spot if you wish to import the photos that are being sent to it.

Depending on the version of Cheese that you are currently using, F-Spot may prompt you to import the entire photo stream.

#### Cheese sharing screenshot

## Frequently Asked Questions

### The video is sluggish/has a slow response. What can I do?

You may have set "`ximagesink`" (X Window System (No Xv)) as video-output. This means that your CPU is doing all the work. Change it to "`xvimagesink`" (X Window System (X11/XShm/Xv)) in order to let your graphics card do the work.

To change this setting, run the `gstreamer-properties` command, click the Video tab and change the appropriate setting.

### I have a Mac with iSight and a ATI graphics card, and the colours are weird.

This is a problem with the ATI graphics card, though there is a workaround. Change the video-output to custom and insert the following: "`ffmpegcolorspace ! video/x-raw-yuv,format=(fourcc)YV12 ! ffmpegcolorspace ! xvimagesink`".

To change this setting, run the `gstreamer-properties` command, click the Video tab and select custom from the drop down menu.

### My webcam works with GStreamer, but does not work with Cheese. What's wrong?

Using the `gstreamer-properties` mentioned in the above question, try changing from xvimagesink to ximagesink or vice-versa. If this still does not work, run `cheese --verbose` on the command line and copy the logging into a bug report in our bug tracker.

### My webcam works with other programs such as Ekiga, Camorama, but not with Cheese. What's wrong?

See if your webcam works when testing it in `gstreamer-properties`. If it works there, but not in Cheese, please file a bug report in our bug tracker.

### Where does Cheese store my photos and videos?

Cheese stores your pictures in a folder called Webcam inside the XDG-Directory set for Pictures (in most distributions its ~/Pictures/Webcam). The same applies for Videos: ~/Videos/Webcam. XDG is a standard to declare default folders in your system. You can find more information about XDG here.

If the XDG-Path is not set on your System, cheese has a fallback solution: it will store both your pictures and videos in ~/.gnome2/cheese/media. This is the default directory for your media if you have an older version of Cheese.

How to set an alternate path is described in .

Attention: leave this settings blank if you want Cheese to use the default directories.

You can also save your pictures to an alternate location from within Cheese. Please see for information on this.

### My Quickcam Express doesn't work with Cheese...

or gstreamer, and I see errors like "Not enough buffers. We got 1, we want at least 2" in the Cheese output. With driver "qc-usb".

Try running `qcset /dev/video0 compat=dblbuf` to enable double buffer compatibility mode, then restart Cheese.

### "No Camera Found" Error Message

"When I launch Cheese, I get the message 'No Camera Found' but I have my webcam plugged into my computer".

There are many situations that can cause this, and the exact problem that is causing it needs to be isolated. If possible, try each of the following to try and get your webcam working:

1. Plug your webcam into another computer. If it works there, then it is a problem with the connection to your computer, or the operating system if it was a different one on the other computer. Check the ports on your computer (try another one) and consult support for your particular operating system.

2. See if your camera is being detected by your computer. On Linux, open up the terminal or console and type "dmesg" before you plug in your webcam. Notice the most recent entries, and then plug in your webcam. Type "dmesg" again and see if the most recent entries differ. If the message mentions a USB device being detected, and your webcam is the only USB device that has been changed, then your computer is detecting your webcam fine. If not, then test to see if the webcam is working on another computer. This may only work with USB webcams.

3. As Cheese uses the gstreamer backend, it is most likely because gstreamer is not detecting the webcam (or gstreamer has become corrupt). Please contact support for the particular operating system that you are running with as many details as possible. For Ubuntu, please use the Ubuntu Forums.

### Which cameras are supported?

Cheese uses gstreamer for video grabbing. So in principle Cheese supports any camera that works with GStreamer. That should be any camera which supports video4linux or video4linux2.

## About

Cheese was initially written by Daniel G. Siegel dgsiegel@gnome.org. as a Google Summer of Code project. Later, Jaap A. Haitsma jaap@haitsma.org and others joined Daniel to improve it. To find more information about Cheese, please visit the Cheese web page.

To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding this application, you can file a bug in our bug tracker.

This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public licence as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the Licence, or (at your option) any later version. A copy of this licence can be found at the GNU site, or in the file COPYING included with the source code of this program.