Reflections are a geometry problem, and geometry problems have exact solutions.
If you wear glasses on video calls, you've seen it: two bright rectangles where your eyes should be. It's the most persistent lighting problem for a huge share of people, and it's frustrating because the usual advice — "add more light" — makes it worse. The good news is that reflections follow a precise physical rule, which means they have precise fixes.
Light reflects off a smooth surface at the same angle it arrives. Your lenses are smooth surfaces. So a light source ends up visible in your glasses only when it sits at the specific angle that bounces it into the camera lens. Change any angle in that relationship — the light's, your head's, or the camera's — and the reflection moves off your lenses. You are not fighting brightness; you are fighting one particular angle.
The most reliable solution. Move your light source above your eye line and tilt it slightly downward toward your face. The reflection then bounces down toward your chest rather than into the camera. With a monitor as your light, this means positioning the screen higher and tipping it forward a few degrees.
Sliding the source 30 to 45 degrees off-axis pushes the reflection to the outer edge of the lens, where it's far less distracting, and often off the lens entirely. This has a bonus effect: side lighting is more three-dimensional and generally more flattering than dead-on lighting.
The trick every TV studio uses on guests: push the earpieces up very slightly where they rest on your ears, tipping the lens fronts down a few degrees. It's imperceptible on camera and often eliminates glare instantly.
A large source at moderate brightness produces a broader, softer reflection than a small bright one — sometimes soft enough to read as a gentle sheen rather than a distracting rectangle. This is another argument for a full monitor over a small panel: with CineGlow you can drop the brightness slider to 60 or 70 percent and gain softness without losing the fill.
In practice, one adjustment usually solves it, and two always do: raise the screen, angle it in from the side, and check your preview. Anti-reflective lens coatings help as well, but they reduce rather than eliminate glare — the geometry still does most of the work.
Open the light and try it →