please help with key in keylight

[Greg Neumayer]

Derrick,
I’ve also put the files up here if you want to refer to them:

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

-Greg

Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com

[Patricio Veloso]

Its not a very expensive plug-in and we use it in real world professional productions.

Currently im working as freelance compositor in a post facility called http://www.daf.cl and sorry for my english but i dont understand what you mean with cross-grade.

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

[Greg Neumayer]

On Red Giant’s website there is a regular price and a cross-grade price, but I can’t figure out what qualifies as a cross-grade.
-Greg

Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com

[Nick Tregenza]

Hi Derrick,

Sorry about the earlier mishap with the weblinks…if you are able to e-mail me on trig_fx@hotmail.co.uk, I’ll be happy to send you the project files if you think it will help.

Shame the links didn’t work on here – seems I have a few things to learn about posting links!

But all the info everyone has provided on here so far is pretty much it. I’ve been keying footage for over 2 years and I guess there’s a knack to it: I just soaked up EVERYTHING I could find – and not just on this site: Brian Maffitt’s tutorials on Total Training were invaluable too…

I tried everything and used what works best for me. I guess everyone has their own way of doing things – there’s no ONE correct way of doing things which is what makes visual FX so challenging and exciting! 🙂

[Greg Neumayer]

I just removed your vars at the end to find your samples:
i.e.
https://s189.photobucket.com/albums/z18/Trig_FX/

Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com

[Nick Tregenza]

Thanks Greg! I appreciate that! 🙂

[Brendan Coots]

Two people so far have said to color correct your footage before keying, but this is actually a bad idea (sorry!).

Keylight is a color difference keyer, meaning it compares your chosen “key” color to the color of every pixel in your image. if a pixel’s color is too “different” (determined by your threshold settings) then it is not keyed.
Since color correction affects all pixels equally (for the most part), the relationship between key color and everything else is exactly the same as before, so there is no actual, mathematical benefit to the end result. Actually, by color correcting first you will degrade your image (all color correction tools degrade footage to a degree) so the keyer is a little less likely to do a good job.

Also, the notion of blurring your background isn’t a plausible solution. A good key is all about the edge of your actor. If you were able to mask out the actor so the blur only affected the background, and very cleanly came right up to the actor’s edge, then you’d be on to something. But, at that point, you’d have a great roto so why bother keying at all?

Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com

[Pat Jaeger]

You can apply a blur to the edge only by creating a new adjustment layer with a Gaussian blur of 4. Then set the transfer mode to colour and you have a slightly softened edge before the key. Ive used this method countless times on DV footage and its allowed me to get a much cleaner edge than without it.

[Derrick]

thanks for all the advise so far to everyone,

I’m busy trying a combination of AR’s tight matte tut, Greg and Nicks efforts, thanks for this.

But there is other interesting information in this thread like what brendon said about not color correcting before keying.

thanks for the help everyone, I just might be able to use the footage after all.

– Derrick

[Brian Lynn]

For those who don’t know what a “cross-grade” is:

A cross-grade can be several things, but mostly its the ability to move one piece of software from one operating system to another.

For example (this is not real):
You own PicturePerfect PRO v.1
Its on a Mac.
Your Mac died, and now you own a PC.
Instead of having to pay for a full liscence again a lot of companies will “cross-grade” you, allowing you to move your software from one Operating System to another, for a reduced price. Many will do it for free!

Another type of cross-grade is when you own a piece of software, but you want to switch to another software…

For example (again, not real that I know of):
You own Combustion.
You now like After Effects better.
Adobe gives you a “cross-grade” discount on an After Effects liscence to bing you into their house of tools, and away from AutoDesk.

Or:
You own Cinema4D.
You now need the power of Maya.
Autodesk offers you, as a user of Cinema4D, a discount for Maya to get you into their house of tools.

Cross-Grade. I hope that helped someone!