Having Problems when adding a background – image comes out awful

[Todd Kopriva]

One thing to keep in mind is that Keylight is really best for color keying. Keying out white isn’t really color keying, per se, since you’re not using hues as much as brightness. And, as you’ve noticed, a similarly bright face or piece of clothing is also keyed out when you key out white. I’m sure that you’ve already tried, but are you not able to narrow the key down to just the background using the threshold and tolerance properties of the Luma Key effect?

If the collar of the actor is the same color as the background, you’re going to end up doing some rotoscoping.

You should also consider using a hold-out matte for the collar so that you don’t have to rotoscope the whole person but can do keying for the parts that keying works OK for.

This is one of those cases in which you realize just how valuable it is to plan ahead for these sorts of shoots.

There are some additional keying tips and links to other keying resources here.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Chris Wright]

if u make a layer with shift channels alpha=blue only, others off and add a adjustment layer above set alpha=saturation, others off mode stencil alpha, both layers add a alpha levels and play with the input black and white can key anything. I almost never have to roto anymore becuse sat and alpha key together. If that fails, it’s still faster to use autotrace than the pencil tool.

https://technicolorsoftware.hostzi.com/

[Simon Stutts]

I know its probably not what you want to hear, but take it as a lesson leared: white is NOT a good color for keying. At all. It’s not a high-contrast color, and when shiny things reflect light, what color are the reflections?

2nd lesson: Make sure your talent is not wearing anything that will screw with your keying. Watch out for shiny jewelry, and shirts the same color as your background. Know that if you can’t get them to wear something else, there will be rotoscoping involved. Like the collar – you’re probably going to have to rotoscope that.

[Chris Wright]

Here’s a sample project of how to key any skin. matte adj controls adjustment layer inner/outer matte will be able to fix your footage. Just remove the smart blur in output and use that comp as a track matte. All done…

ae cs3 example aep
https://www.megaupload.com/?d=31R9C0WB

https://technicolorsoftware.hostzi.com/

[Ramon Montes]

Thanks, Todd.

No, I was not able to narrow the key down to just the background using Luma Key.

[Ramon Montes]

Thanks Chris, I really appreciate it.

[Philippe Lessard]

Hi Chris,
Im curious about your method, but you forgot to put the jpg along with the project in the zip!!!