Chat from anywhere (or just look like it).

With new video backdrops, you can drag a picture or video from iPhoto, iMovie or the Finder into the video effects window. Make it look like you’re chatting from your living room, the beach or the moon. Even buddies who don’t have Leopard will see your backdrop.

Chat for effect.

Transform your video chats using new Photo Booth effects. Add kapow! to a chat with the comic book effect. Get twisted with twirl. Soften your image with glow. Just choose an effect and your video changes instantly.

Show off (without showing up).

Why wait for a darkened room and a projector to present holiday photos or Keynote slides? Now you can do it all remotely, right in iChat. Put on a photo slideshow, click through a Keynote presentation, or play a movie — in full screen, accompanied by a video feed of you hosting — while your buddy looks on. In fact, you can show any file on your system that works with Quick Look.

Share and share alike.

Thanks to iChat screen sharing, you and your buddy can observe and control a single desktop with iChat, making it a cinch to collaborate with a colleague, browse the web with a friend, or pick plane seats with your spouse. Share your own desktop or your buddy’s — you both have control at all times. And iChat automatically initiates an audio chat when you start a screen sharing session, so you can talk things through while you’re at it.

Chatting for the record.

Now you can save your audio and video chats for posterity with iChat recording. Before recording starts, iChat notifies your buddies and asks for their permission to record. When you’ve finished chatting, iChat stores your audio chats as AAC files and video chats as MPEG-4 files so you can play them in iTunes or QuickTime. Share them with colleagues, friends and family or sync them to your iPod and play on the go.