Cheese : Easy to use WebCam application for Linux

Cheese is an open source GNOME application that allows you to use your WebCam for taking photos and recording videos. Cheese has an intuitive interface which somewhat resembles that of Phonebooth, a similar application available on the Mac OS X Platform. Based on GStreamer framework , it allows you to introduce various fancy graphical effects into your photos and videos.


Cheese is available in Ubuntu 8.04 Repositories and hence can be easily installed by typing in the following command in the terminal window (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal ) :

sudo apt-get install cheese



After installation is over you can launch Cheese from (Applications -> Graphics -> Cheese ) .

This is how Cheese looks

Cheese is really simple to use, the entire window is divided into two parts . The bottom part of the Cheese window has a file manager that displays all the videos and photos you have taken till date.Double clicking any photo opens that photo in the "Eye for Gnome" application(or any application you have set as default for opening image files ) while clicking on Video files opens the Totem Movie Player. Now for capturing photos you need to click on the Photo button to set Cheese into Photo capturing mode and then press the "Take a photo " button, Similarly for capturing video you need to click the "Video" button to set the Cheese application into video capturing mode and the click on the "Start recording" button to actually start capturing video from the WebCam.
Now Cheese provides you with a number of really cool graphic effects too though limited, Still some of the Graphic effects are really good, giving your images and videos a new creative look.Also you can apply multiple effects to your images/videos by selecting more than one effect.

Effects available in Cheese

Another fun thing about the Cheese application is the Count Down from 3-2-1 and then Screenflash before taking Photo snaps.

Countdown !!!!

However i encountered problem while recording videos, when i tried recording video it recorded the video alright but as soon as i finished and pressed the "Stop recording" button the entire application crashed , however when i restarted the application and played the video in the file-manager i found it to be properly recorded.

Overall Cheese is an extremely useful application that should be bundled by default with the GNOME desktop environment , Providing simple interface to your WebCam as well as simple graphical effects to enhance your photos/images. Though feature rich , still one could have added the ability to upload images to various Photo Albums online within the Cheese application.


Article Written by : Ambuj Varshney (blogambuj@gmail.com)
For Desktop on Linux Blog , http://linuxondesktop.blogspot.com
(C) 2008 , Ambuj Varshney