backdrop for green screen varies in color

Milt Lee wrote on 3/25/2014, 2:17 PM
Hi,
I'm sorry if this is too simple - or silly but there you are.

I shot some stuff with a green screen, but the lighting has some subtle variations from top to bottom. Is there a way to even out the color so I can pick one color and have it be effective for the entire background. I am masking a lot of it out, but of course - it's the stuff that's right next to my subject's head that is the issue.

I was thinking about how in photoshop you can paint one color over another, and wished there was something similar in Vegas. I was also wondering if there was a better tool than the enclosed plugin.
Thanks for your help.
Milt

Comments

Marc S wrote on 3/25/2014, 2:45 PM
Milt,

I'm no green screen expert but I recently did one and found the Vegas chroma key terrible on a not so great green screen. I ended up doing the key in After Effects and it worked much better. Premiere was a close second.
monoparadox wrote on 3/25/2014, 3:06 PM
I agree Vegas chromakey isn't the best. That said, I have found the best results by sampling the darkest area of the greenscreen and adjusting from there. You also might want to bring up lighting by using color curves before applying the key.

tom
robwood wrote on 3/25/2014, 4:40 PM
try boosting the green signal before picking it... i'd do that by using the secondary corrector (2CC) first in the plug-in chain.
then sample the green in the area, adjust the hue/sat as needed (keep it as narrow boost as will allow), and boost/shuffle the saturation as needed.

try creating a mask again.
K-Decisive wrote on 3/27/2014, 1:14 PM
If you go the After Effects Route (keylight is wonderful!), you can try putting a 'change to color' plugin before keylight. This can be used to make the green more consistent before it hits the keyer. Another useful technique is to key different areas of the clip usinging featered masks and multiple layers with their own keylight set for that area. has helped me in the past.

With Vegas 12 you can use the Premieer/After effects export to get your timeline over to AE. works great.
Marc S wrote on 3/27/2014, 1:38 PM
Keylight is what I used as well. It made the difference between an unusable key and a great looking one.