• Adobe After Effects

  after effects fx with black back ground

  Posted by Hassan Ibrahim on February 12, 2012 at 12:14 am

  hi. i just downloaded a video effect from youtube to use in adobe after effects cs5. here is the link
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JByGitbKa20&feature=related
  i need to remove the black background so i can use it. i tried keylight but couldn’t get use able results. can somebody tell how can i do this? as the videos from video copilot, e.g in action essentials also have a black back ground but one can use them as such… pls help me with this problem. thanks

  Nick Tallents replied 14 years, 3 months ago 4 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Joseph W. bourke

  February 12, 2012 at 4:51 pm

  Generally, whenever you see an effect like this with a black background, it’s meant to be composited in Additive mode, a mode which sees the pixels which are brighter than black, and adds their value to the underlying pixels. The black disappears, but this effect only works over another layer.

  In this case, there a couple of ways to go: you could use Additive mode, or you could get your hands on the free Unmult plugin, which you can find here:

  https://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/free/#list

  This one “unmultiplies” the pixels from the black ones, giving you an alpha channel. It’s really up to you, depending on the look you’re going for, which way you want to go.

  Joe Bourke
  Owner/Creative Director
  Bourke Media
  http://www.bourkemedia.com
• 

  Andrew Somers

  February 13, 2012 at 3:45 am

  I have a couple of recent posts that discuss how to work with black screen elements that you might find useful:

  https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/1013480

  https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/1013568

  As Joseph said, the unmult plugin can be helpful, at least when it works. Unfortunately, there are a lot of cases where it does not work as expected in black screen – one tip with unmult is to put a LEVELS effect above it in the stack, to adjust and/or clip the black. In some cases, you’ll want to use unmult along with levels to create an alpha channel layer, then use that layer as an alpha for the layer with the image you are trying to comp.
• 

  Nick Tallents

  February 13, 2012 at 10:04 am

  Using the “screen” layer blending mode should remove all black.

  “Life’s a progress bar”

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