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Mohammad
Mohammad

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How JS Really Takes Photos!

There are two main ways to access the user's camera in JavaScript (and React). One of them became the go-to solution, and most libraries are just creative variations of it.

1. The video tag + Screenshot Trick

You stream the camera into a video tag element, and when the user hits the shutter button, you capture a screenshot using a .
📷 The image quality depends on the resolution you define — it’s usually lower quality, but fast and lightweight.

2. The ImageCapture API

Instead of grabbing the whole screen, this API captures a single frame directly from the video stream.
📸 The quality is much better, but unfortunately, it’s not supported in Safari or Firefox yet, and there’s no widely adopted library around it.

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