please help with key in keylight

[Pat Jaeger]

Hey,

Im not sure about the settings as I havnt tested with your footage yet but you may get a better key if you make a tighter junk matte.
Have a look at Aharon Rabinowitz’s ‘super tight junk matte’ tutorial:

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/junk_mattes.php

[Kevin Camp]

if you haven’t already, go to the tutorials page and search for super tight junk mattes for a tutorial done by aharon rabinowitz. he shows a very useful technique for creating very accurate junk mattes which should help you out a lot here.

also, in the keylight manual, there is a technique they describe for using their ‘inside mask’ feature… it’s around page 42 in the pdf i have.

basically, aharon’s technique ‘crops out’ much of the information that you don’t want to keep (the area out side the subject edges) and the inside mask technique is used to define the area you definately want to keep (the area within the subject edges), leaving you with just he area around the edges to focus on. it’s not a one step process, but it is usually quite effective.

if you are comfortable with aharon’s super tight junk mattes method, you can actually copy and paste those masks onto you footage, use mask expansion settings to shrink the mask inwards and use that for the inside mask (it will render much faster than than 2 instances of keylight, as the pdf describes). note, this can get a bit tricky if you have multiple masks from auto trace.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Robert Houghton]

I was able to get a decent key using AE’s native Color Range keyer. Keylight is a good tool but it is definitely not a one-click wonder. On a recent project we were forced to abandon it just because it tried to do too much.

-Rob

[Joe Moya]

IMO… you can spend a lot of time trying to key this clip… and probably get only mediocre results at best…

or… you can spend a whole lot of time rotoscoping each frame.

Whether or not you rotoscope or key depends upon how well you want it to look and how much time you want to spend on the project.

In the end… that clip is going to be a LOT of work and time no matter the technique you use.

Joe

[Nick Tregenza]

I mostly agree with everyone above – it IS hard shot and poorly lit – but not unsalvageable if you are prepared to put some work in.

A tighter junk matte is a MUST.

But here are two examples of your shot that I managed to do in about 20 minutes:

https://s189.photobucket.com/albums/z18/Trig_FX/?action=view¤t=Frame_no_CC.jpg

https://s189.photobucket.com/albums/z18/Trig_FX/?action=view¤t=frame_with_CC.jpg

The first one has basic curves and levels adjustments, and the second has 2 foreground layers and basic colour correction too – I used one of the sample pics that comes with Windows for the background, but I guess it depends on what background you want to use.

It also depends on what format you are ultimately rendering out to, whether it’s intended for broadcast or not.

But for 20 mins work, for a personal project I would say this is reasonably acceptable!

If you agree, and are happy with the result here, please do not hesitate to reply to this and I’ll see what I can do.

If it’s NOT acceptable, then I apologise for wasting everyone’s time – this is my first post on here, so I hope I haven’t upset anyone by doing this! But I hope that I’ve been able to help in some way… 🙂

[Greg Neumayer]

Well, where’s the fun if we don’t throw a key on it. Here’s what I was able to pull in 10 minutes:

https://www.antifreezedesign.com/user/cow/testCoupleKey.jpg

‘course, it needs some holdout on the belt, and trim on the bottom. Pretty scrappy, but if you’re also trying to get a handle on where your mad-skillz collide with your footage quality, this may help you have some perspective. One of the frustrating things when I was learning to key was not knowing where the problem was. Go through the Keylight manual/tutorial. It’s not an effect you can just play with until you understand it. There’s a method.

This was done with a bit of Curves, then Keylight, then some Hue/Sat (to kill the green), then a bit of Color Balance to whiten the highlights a bit.

-Greg

Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com

[Derrick]

thanks for the replies,

Dave, your right, it is a lesson in taking more time or rather moving a little shoot to another day, we wanted to get done, and that is why we have the poor result.

It is a personal project for a friend, I would like to try and use this, even though I know the truth, it needs proper reshoot, but to get those two together in daytime is almost impossible.

Nick, I would like to see those images, but when I click the links the webpages are empty?

any chance you could maybe post the AE project file please?

thanks for everyone’s time,
Derrick

[Patricio Veloso]

I agree with Greg.
There’s a lot of ways to solve your problem.

I usually use this method.

1. Super Tight Matte (you must see Aharon Rabinowitz tutorial)

2. Color Correct the footage. (levels,curves,hue,saturation)

3. Try to smooth the color to be keyed. (blur o reencode the video to a 422 codec and begin again).

4. Apply Keylight (READ THE MANUAL!!!!!!! Dont get mad trying to obtain a perfect key is good to leave some details in some zones like the hair)

5. Alpha Levels (You can do some fine tuning with this)

Take a look at this incredible piece of software Key Correct Pro from Red Giant Software. https://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/all/key-correct-pro/

And please remember, try to avoid HDV cameras to do any keying process.

Patricio Veloso
Postproducer and Director
Freelance Video Geek

Fabrica Audiovisual
Santiago, Chile.

Patricio Veloso
Broadcast Editor / Postproducer / HD Addict!
Greetings from Chile.

[Greg Neumayer]

Key Correct Pro looks great, but I can’t tell what qualifies for the cross-grade price. Do you know?

Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com

[Derrick]

I just watched the super tight junk matte tutorial, and it should help a bit.

i’ll also read the keylight manual, haven’t read it in a longtime,

i know I’m trying to get blood out of a stone here, I’ll never take a greenscreen shoot so casual that’s for sure, but maybe a can get acceptable result, Greg’s looks workable.

when applying levels, do you boost the green to try and get a more even screen?

thanks,
– Derrick