Screen blending mode without a BG

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Perhaps I’m not understanding the problem, but why not just composite it in screen mode for all videos?

[Orion Mccaw]

I’ll try to explain this a little clearer. I like the way the blending mode screen works because it’s simple and quick for all the footage I’ve had to do this to. the only problem is that I need to layer a star field behind the footage for the blending mode to work. this is okay except that sometimes I use the same video clip in different parts of my show which require different star fields in the BG. so this brings me to my question.

I’m wondering if any of you talented AE wizards out there know of any tricks so that I don’t require a BG to use the screen blending mode. This would allow me to remove the sky, render it out once with an alpha channel, and use it on all my star fields (in Premiere). Of course without doing anything, if I have the screen blending mode selected and no BG then I don’t have a transparent sky.

I’m self taught with this stuff so I’m not sure if this is even possible or not but I thought I’d ask you folks. Maybe it’s easier to key out the sky another way

Here’s an example of one of the shots I’m working with. (this is one of the harder shots. for this to work I would add 2 of the video files into the comp, set the bottom one to screen, and do a rough mask around the ground stuff so that any black on the ground isn’t removed)

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Premiere has a Screen blending mode, which is why I don’t still see the problem with using Screen mode for everything.

Maybe an example where it doesn’t work?

[Orion Mccaw]

oh I’m being silly, I’m fairly new to premiere and now that you mention it, it makes total sense that it also has a screen blending mode. I’ll play around with that and see if I can accomplish what I’m going for.

Thanks for the reminder.