The Golden Hour effect fills your screen with a warm, gold-to-orange glow that pulses gently, like the light in the last hour before sunset. Point it at yourself for a warm key light, or run it on a second screen behind you as an ambient wash.
Before you start
- A screen you can point at your subject. A second monitor, laptop, tablet, or phone all work — closer and larger gives you more usable light.
- A camera or recording app running elsewhere, since the effect takes over the screen it's running on.
- Manual white balance control in your camera app, if you have it. This effect's biggest practical problem is cameras auto-correcting the warm color away — see Troubleshooting below.
Set it up
- Open the Golden Hour effect on the screen you want to use as your light source.
- Position the screen facing your subject — beside or behind your camera for a key light, or behind the subject for a background wash.
- Set Color Temperature to Warm White or Tungsten for the strongest gold look.
- Set Brightness to around 70–80 to start.
- Select Go Fullscreen.
- Check your camera preview. If the glow looks washed-out or white rather than gold, lock your camera's white balance manually rather than leaving it on auto.
You'll know it worked when the screen shows a centered orange-gold glow that slowly brightens and dims, and your camera preview holds that warm color instead of drifting back toward white.
To leave fullscreen, press Escape or move your mouse and select Exit Fullscreen.
What each control does
| Control | Range | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Brightness | 10–100 | Overall strength of the glow. Higher values push more warm light onto your subject or backdrop. |
| Color Temperature | Daylight, Cool White, Neutral, Warm White, Tungsten | Changes the color at the center of the glow only — it always fades into the same fixed orange partway out. Warm White and Tungsten give the most golden result; Daylight and Cool White give a lighter, whiter core with an orange edge. |
There's no control for the shimmer speed or intensity — it runs continuously whenever the effect is active. You can also drop a logo onto the effect from the Logo tab; its position, size, and opacity are saved in your browser on that device.
Common setups
- Warm key light on a video call. Screen 18–24 inches from your face, Tungsten, Brightness 65–75. Lock your camera's white balance once you're happy with the color, or it will drift back toward neutral within a few seconds.
- Background wash behind you, laptop camera up front. Run Golden Hour on a second screen well behind your shoulders, Warm White, Brightness 50–60. Keep your key light (a lamp, a window, or a separate Key Light effect screen) doing the actual work on your face.
- Matching real golden hour light through a window. Close the blinds partway so the window isn't fighting the screen, and set Color Temperature to whatever reads closest to the outdoor light — usually Warm White in the early part of the hour, Tungsten as the sun gets lower.
- Product or portrait photography. Tungsten, Brightness 80–90, screen close to the subject. Still photos don't need to worry about the shimmer showing up as motion the way video does.
Troubleshooting
My face looks white or pale instead of golden. Auto white balance is correcting the warm light back out, exactly as it would with real sunset light. Lock white balance manually in your camera or recording app (many apps have a "sunset," "tungsten," or "manual" preset) rather than leaving it on auto.
Switching Color Temperature barely changes the color. That's expected — the setting only changes the center of the glow. The glow always blends into the same fixed orange further out, so Daylight and Cool White still look golden overall, just with a lighter core. Use Warm White or Tungsten if you want the strongest possible gold.
The glow visibly brightens and dims in my recording. That's the built-in shimmer, not a bug, and there's no control to turn it off. If you need a perfectly static glow for a screen share or recording, switch to Key Light, which doesn't animate.
Everything past my face or shoulders stays dark. The glow is centered and fades outward, so it doesn't fill the whole frame the way a flat light does. Move the screen closer for more coverage, or add a second WebLight screen as a wider background source.
The color clashes with real window light instead of matching it. Two warm light sources at different color temperatures still read as two different colors on camera. Set Color Temperature as close as you can to the window light, or close the blinds and let the screen provide all the warm light.
Next steps
For a directional, more sculpted warm light instead of a centered glow, try Key Light. For flat, even light across your whole face, Ring Light is the better starting point.