In today’s digital world, it’s common for clients, colleagues, and team leaders to prefer video meetings with cameras on. It’s a great way to ensure everyone is focused, but it can also reveal more than intended. To maintain your privacy, use a virtual background—here are great places to find some.
Adobe Stock
Adobe Stock is undoubtedly the top source for finding images in any category. It offers a vast collection of royalty-free stock images, vectors, and videos. You can find a wide range of backgrounds, from clean and minimalist to scenic landscapes and even fun designs. The only downside is you’ll need a paid subscription to unlock these images and use them for your video calls.
Airbnb
If you’re tired of the same old video call background, Airbnb can help. Airbnb listings have lots of pictures from cool places like beaches, mountains, and cozy cabins. You can use these pictures to brighten up your online meetings. Just pick a picture, and it’ll look like you’re in a whole new location—all without leaving your chair.
Pexels
Finding a perfect background for meetings, and that too for free, can be challenging. However, free options such as Pexels provide a simple solution for finding and downloading a fitting background at no charge.
Pexels offers a huge library of free stock photos and videos. If there’s a photo or video that catches your eye, download it without any string attached and set it as your meeting background.
Canva
Canva is a free online tool for graphic designing. It allows you to create various visual content. With Canva, you can easily customize background templates, alter colors, incorporate text, and even upload your own photos or use their extensive media library.
Having a custom background in your business meetings helps you enhance professionalism and reinforce your brand identity. So, if you want to make your meetings more engaging and visually appealing, Canva is the right choice for you.
Canva is a freemium service with a large library of free templates, fonts, and stock photos. However, if you need more fonts and templates, you can explore their paid plan.
Fox Entertainment
If you’re a fan of Fox TV shows like “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy” or ever wish to appear in a Fox News studio, you should try their virtual backgrounds for your video meetings.
Fox Entertainment offers downloadable backgrounds that you can use for virtual meetings. You have the option to be on the FOX 5 news set or choose backgrounds from popular FOX animated shows. It’s a fun way to add some flair to your online meetings.
Unsplash
Unsplash is another free website with a massive collection of high-quality, royalty-free images. It’s powered by worldwide creators who generously contribute their photos. Simply, download these free images and set them as a background for your video calls.
To elevate your virtual meeting experience, Unsplash has a diverse range of images. You’ll find images of professional office settings, serene landscapes, or abstract visuals.
Simply use the Unsplash search function to find images that suit your needs. You can download them with a few clicks.
Shutterstock
Just like Adobe Stock, Shutterstock is also a vast online image library that offers millions of images across a wide range of categories. With such an extensive image library, you’ll find diverse backgrounds to suit different occasions. You can also create your own background images for video calls using Shutterstock’s online image editing tool called Shutterstock Create.
But all these features and images come at a cost, and you need to buy their subscription to download and edit images.
Hello Backgrounds
HelloBackgrounds is a professional service that provides high-quality images and video backgrounds for video calls and meetings. Whether you’re using Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet, Hello Backgrounds offers over 300 backgrounds to help you make the right impression in your virtual meetings.
You can choose from various settings, like private offices, shared workspaces, and public places. If you want to look your best on video calls, you can download all their backgrounds by paying a one-time fee and enjoy free updates forever.
Pinterest is a social media platform focused on finding and sharing new ideas. It revolves around images (Pins) and collections (boards). Pinterest’s standout feature is its visual discovery. You can find ideas by uploading an image or using a similar image search.
Like other photo-sharing platforms, Pinterest offers a wide selection of images suitable for virtual meeting backgrounds. You can follow your favorite creators to receive new images from them. A convenient feature of Pinterest is the one-click image download, which makes it easy to download any image.
Marvel
If you’re a fan of Marvel Comics, movies, and superheroes, you’ll love the collection of free Marvel background images. These images include scenes from popular Marvel films like Avengers, Black Panther, Dr. Strange, and Thor.
With these backgrounds, you can replace your boring home decor with exciting and heroic scenes. By using this, your meetings will become more exciting, and make your colleagues think like you’re working from Asgard.
Room for Zoom
Room For Zoom is a free collection of high-quality virtual backgrounds for Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and various other online meeting platforms. The backgrounds are categorized with previews and popularity ratings to assist you in finding the perfect background. From popular TV shows to Sci-fi movies and games, there is a wide range of options to choose from.
Additionally, you can also opt for minimalist backgrounds like a stylish wall of books or a simple monochromatic backdrop.
AI-Generated Background Images
Google Meet and Microsoft Teams have implemented AI-powered features to improve video call backgrounds. Google Meet uses their AI model to generate unique and bespoke meeting backgrounds. You can find the Generate a Background section under the Apply Visual Effects settings.
Similarly, Microsoft Teams introduced the “Decorate Your Background” feature, which uses their generative AI model to create more professional backgrounds. Unlike traditional background replacement, which simply blurs your surroundings, Decorate uses the captured image as a base and transforms it based on your chosen theme.
You can pick different themes for your background. For example, “Clean up” makes things tidy around you, while “Fancy” themes add a decorative element to your surroundings. There are other themes like “Greenhouse,” “Celebration,” and “Surprise me” for random backgrounds.
Unfortunately, Zoom doesn’t have an AI background feature yet, but you can explore its Avatar option. Zoom’s Avatars feature allows you to replace your appearance with a 3D virtual avatar during meetings and webinars. These avatars mirror your head movements and facial expressions, making your meetings more fun.
Finding the perfect virtual background for video calls can be a fun challenge, but the right resources can truly help you make a great impression in your Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom meetings.
