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how to remove dark edges around subject after keying in After Effects
Hi my dear Creative Cow users,
I have a question to ask you. Related to keying using Keylight Plugin and After Effects CS3.
I am building a tiny studio (home depot made) at work and I will be filming an interview which will have the background keyed out.
I am using a tradeshow booth that has a blue carpet in the background
(see screenshot at: https://screencast.com/t/MyctNfqxA )After setting up my 3 lights (1 in the back and 2 on the front right and left with a diffuser), I managed to kill practically all the shadows and light up my subject correctly.
After filming I imported the footage into After Effects CS3 and used the KeyLight by Foundry Plugin to remove the blue background.
I made sure to set the Clip black and white accordingly to have a good balance of transparency for the background
(see https://screencast.com/t/fni3Yt44 )But what Im always getting stuck with is the edges of the subject. It looks like there is a badly cut shadow on the edges of my body that i can’t get rid of.
(see https://screencast.com/t/wckK0fzYr & https://screencast.com/t/rMsn55vU )Attached are my settings for the keylight plugin
(see https://screencast.com/t/pJmC7HiKHv)I tried playing with the settings for the keylight plugin to soften the edges but it makes the subject look too soften and blurry on the edges, not the effect im looking for. No matter what I do its either too blurry on the edges or there’s that badly keyed out edge. I don’t know what to do in order to remove that dark edge? Could this have to do with not enough lighting on the subject during the filming? Did you ever have to deal with that issue?
Here’s a sample of what the video looks like with no softness:
https://screencast.com/t/YgT9WDEoDjaHere’s a sample of what the video looks like with added softness:
https://screencast.com/t/RMBB6Dinhrp -
6 Replies
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here’s detonation films’ recipe for low budget chroma green paint. but, as dave mentions, you’ll need adequate lighting and a large enough room to have a decent amount of space between the subject and the screen.
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
Here comes the “if you are broke rebuttle…”
You can use hard lights from hardware stores then diffuse them. You can use amber gells to cut down light spill if you don’t have a large keyer. Outdoors works fantastic at a 45 degree angle to matte if you have no lights but use green for matching outdoors, because blue being keyed outdoors and indoors doesn’t match saturation to itself.
and…
Upload a TGA, TIFF or BMP at the highest quality to an upload site and post link. I’ll try keying it as a single image with Primatte Keyer. I have keyed worse for clients b4.
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This is how good primatte keyer is. I got this with a few clicks of the mouse, no photoshop. And this is with just a thumbnail! The full sized video would be even better.
https://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=9kyueb&s=3
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Hi! This too late for sure, but maybe for some people still strugling with this problem might be useful.
Did You try “matte choker” after keying? This should fix the problem and cut theese edges out. I,ve done it many times with badly lighted blue/green screen and the results were satisfactory (relative). O! and I’m using the bild in AE filter “linear color key” insted of “keylight” – don’t know which is better – writing this just to note.
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Hi Maciej,
You’re not too late, I didn’t get a chance to work on this issue yet. I will be giving your technique a try and bring you back feedback.
Thank you for your time.
Best Regards,
Patrick Saad -
I’m coming in WAY late here, but use keylight. You’ll be able to fix it up pretty well. Use the matte choker as well, and soften it up in keylight.
I regularly shoot interviews against a green screen in my TINY studio, with the subject about three feet away from the wall, with less than optimal lighting, and I can pull very good keys using keylight even when the background is uneven. It’s an amazing plugin. You just need to work with it a bit.
Also, check out Aharon Rabinowitz’s SUPER TIGHT JUNK MATTES video (here on the Cow) for a great way to get better keys, and also videocopilot.net for Andrew Kramer’s tutorials on keying.
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