Is there any way to chroma key black in Vegas?

[Steve Rhoden]

Simply treat the black as you would a green screen..first apply the
‘pure green screen’ preset from the chroma keyer…then use the color dropper on the left to draw a small square over the color you want keyed out..then fine tune using the threshold and blur sliders.
And further finetuning can be done by applying the chroma blur.

For best effect apply the chroma keyer to the track panel to the left
and when done…apply the chroma blur directly on the event…tweak until you get your desired look.

Steve Rhoden
TNX EFFECTS STUDIOS.

[Rich Kyanka]

Thanks for the reply. Apparently Vegas was stuck in one of its random, perpetual “let’s not update the video preview” mode, which didn’t display the current track effect changes until I restarted. Hooray!

[David Shirey]

Would happen to be the famous Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka?

[John Rofrano]

I realize you got this working already but for next time… since black has no chroma you could do a Luma Key instead.

1. Duplicate the clip on a new track above the original and make the original track a child composite of the upper one.
2. Then add the Sony Mask Generator to the upper track and adjust the High In down until you have a black & white mask of just the computer screen area.
3. Finally change the Compositing Mode of the upper track to Multiply (Mask).

Now anything you place below the original track will show through the computer screen.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Rich Kyanka]

Nah, I lost all possible relevancy back around 2002 or so. Now I’m just a washed-up shell of a human being.

Are you handy with Vegas, David? If so, would you mind dropping me an email (webmaster@somethingawful.com) with your IM handle (if you have one)? I’ve got some miscellaneous questions regarding Vegas, mostly about color space and mastering, which I’d rather not litter throughout these fine forums.

I’m working on a TOP SECRET PROJECT!!!

[Rich Kyanka]

Thanks for the tip; I will try it. While I originally tried to simply do the entire thing in Boris Red, I abandoned that attempt due to the extra steps and timeline required to edit in Boris.

So what I ended up doing was copying the original video clip, using the crop tool (with stretch to fill frame disabled) to create a rectangle around the black monitor area, and adding a Sony Chroma Key set to 20,20,20. Then I added a timeline below that, with the monitor image resized and aligned with the monitor. Below that, obviously, was the original video clip. This seems to work decently, although Sony’s not-so-quality chroma key isn’t exactly as nice as the one native to Red.