Compositing Your Green Screen Footage

Your final objectives define the process. Simple talking head superimposed over the corner of a screen capture video doesn’t require much effort and won’t look realistic. If you want to create something more realistic, extra steps and effort will be needed.

My process for compositing green screen footage goes like this. First, I use masking tools to cut out all the parts of my background where my subject doesn’t overlap (in more challenging shots I create an animated mask that follows my subject.) This let’s me focus on the area right around my foreground subject. Next, I apply my keying tool to the clip, use the color picker to select the green from my background and start fine tuning my settings. UltraKey and Keylight both let you switch your view to see the black and white mask that the software is creating to cut out the subject from the background. I use this view to make adjustments to the settings in my keyer and fine tune. The background should be pure black and the foreground pure white with some subtle shading at the edges. Next, I switch back to viewing my footage and play with the matte choker, edge feathering, and spill suppression settings. Next, I color correct my foreground footage to make sure it blends well with the background. Finally I add some light wrapping (usually from a free HitFilm plugin) that helps to blend the edges of the foreground with the background. Light wrap is subtle, but really helps to ‘sell’ a composite shot.

Garbage Matting/Masking

Apply the Keying Plugin and Select Key Color

Refining Matte

Color Correction

Light Wrapping