Luma Keying Blonde Hair

[Max Jackson]

Yeah, totally. That’s what I started doing using the blue channel. Joey told me how to filter all of them through a color using the Shift Channels.

I chose blue because I was dealing with blonde on white and it come out the most contrasty on a channel-to-channel check.

Even though I couldn’t quite get past the white fuzz. It sounds like this is a common method for what everybody does. It’s late here in California, but I’ll practice some more tomorrow and then try a few more tweaks to get it solid.

Thanks Angie! 😀

[Joey Foreman]

Sorry, it was late in Georgia too, and when I wrote Smart Blur I meant Fast Blur. You might also try the Matte Choker, as it has some additional softening control.

If you’re still hitting a brick wall, you could post a full res grab of an unprocessed frame, and I’m sure someone here would be willing to play around with it and let you know what they come up with.

Joey Foreman
Editor/Compositor/VFX Artist

[Max Jackson]

Cool, I’ll try apply fast blur, and matte choker instead of simple choker.

I’d post the files but they’re copyright sensitive and don’t want to get in trouble. I’m just using them because it’s a great real job scenario demonstration to work with. What’s funny is their resolution isn’t that great. If you check my blog in the main AE forum you’ll see what I mean. 😛

Thanks Joey! You’ve been a great help!

[Max Jackson]

Hi Dave!

I’m pulling a luma key/matte, and yes the footage isn’t that great:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/994740

It’s really noisy footage too. I did a color reverse channel blur on green, but it didn’t help too much. So yeah, blonde hair on white with noisy, semi-grade footage has been an interesting challenge.

That might be a reason I’m having a more difficult time. I’ve gotten close though, just need to try a couple more things. Then I’m going to have to put up a thread looking for more white cyc backgrounds to practice on. 😛

[Joey Foreman]

Actually, Max, all you need to do in the future is avoid white cyc backgrounds all together. Go green screen next time, and most of these issues will vanish. Especially if you take Dave’s advice and shoot with a camera that does at least 4:2:2 color sampling.

Joey Foreman
Editor/Compositor/VFX Artist

[Max Jackson]

Joey, I’m totally with you, white is harder than green, blonde or not. But ABC shot it this way and we were handed it at the agency to do something with for a rich media campaign. So, I’m taking a real do-or-die boot-camp approach to self-training as I expect I could see something like this again and would hate to lose a future client.

It’s possible the footage wasn’t given that much focus because they knew the end product was going to be about 600×400 pixels max size…or at least that’s my guess.

Just trying to be ready for anything so I can start feeling comfortable saying ‘yes’ to After Effects jobs.

Thanks Joey,
-maX

[Max Jackson]

Hi Dave,

Yeah, that’s what I was wondering. The footage was actually splintering up, but I learned from Spencer in another thread I posted that it was a compression issue. That when going from DNxHD (I think it’s called) the compression sometimes creates artifacts.

Here’s the thread:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/994740

I believe this footage was shot with a very nice company-owned camera, but the white backdrop was intended in one way or another because they had the actor pushing a green-coated object out of the way. The grip was even using green gloves so they knew what they were doing. It was to make the actor look like he was pushing something out of the way, that something was to be the web page revealing the ABC rich media banner.

Why they had him holding on to a greened out object with a white cyc behind him is beyond me. Maybe they figured that’s all we were going to need? Like a car commercial or something? Heh, as things go, it didn’t turn out that way…had to luma key.

[Angie Taylor]

Hi again,

Also, what may be causing a lot of your noise isues is the fact you’re using the blue channel. The blue channel is most often the one that contains the majority of noise. I usually find the red channel is the best to use as it maintains a lot of skintones and is usually fairly noise-free.

cheers,

Angie

Angie Taylor animation & illustration for television, film, web and devices

https://www.angietaylor.co.uk
Twitter: theangietaylor
Linkedin: theangietaylor
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Angie-Taylor/118378194869002

[Max Jackson]

Hi Angie,

That’s great to know. Yeah, it’s REALLY noisy. Like, chunky even.

I’ll take another pass at it using red instead of blue. I just used blue to start because it was providing the most contrast right off.

Any bonus with skin tones would be great too.

Thanks!