Photo Booth tips which make it easier to take pics and get goofy

One of the first things many new Mac users do is fire up Photo Booth and snap some funny looking shots of themselves. Sure… it gets old eventually, but it can still fun. Rekindle your love of Photo Booth with these tips & tricks.

Just as a preliminary warning for anybody still on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, some of the tips in this article may not work unless you’re running 10.5 Leopard. It’s a sad reality, but why not try them just in case? With that said, let’s get started. Be ready to take some embarrassing pictures to show off to friends and family!

Skip the countdown

Sometimes a good shot is time sensitive and waiting for Photo Booth to go through its normal 3-2-1 countdown is a downer. Instant gratification is on the way! Simply hold down the Option key as you press the shutter button to take a picture immediately. And if you’re anti-mouse, pressing Option and Enter/Return achieves the same result.

Disable the screen flash

Apple was really smart to use the entire computer display as a big flash bulb for Photo Booth, but there are times when it’s not needed or wanted. A mere Shift-click on the button (or Shift+Enter) will take your photo minus the flash. You can even combine this and the previous tip (Shift+Option+Enter) to take a flash-less picture instantly.

Abort! Abort! Cancel the countdown

You might think that once the photo countdown has been initiated, it’s too late to change your mind and you will just have to wait to delete the unwanted image afterwards. Not true! Before a picture is taken, you can hit Escape to abort the countdown midway through and cancel the snapshot.

Navigate through photos with ease

Heavy users of Photo Booth can get rambunctious and end up accumulating tons and tons of snapshots without even realizing it. Since the program only shows a few thumbnails at a time with clickable arrows at either side, navigating through them can get cumbersome. If you hold Command and then press the left or right arrow on your keyboard, however, Photo Booth will immediately move to the very beginning (left) or end (end) of your photo roll.

Flip snapshots back to normal

Have you ever noticed that pictures taken in Photo Booth are actually in reverse? Very much like how a mirror works, left is right and right is left. I’m not really sure why this option isn’t enabled by default, but you can fix this behavior by going to Edit > Auto Flip New Photos in the menu bar. Fix a previously-taken snapshot by selecting it and then going to Edit > Flip Photo. No more reversal!