How Do I Get Good Quality White Background?

[kirksmith]

Hi All

This is my first post and so far I love the ulead software. I am currently using video studio 10 + and don't fully understand how to achieve the effect of getting the background to be completely whitened out!

This is what I want to do here.. http://www.danlokrecommends.com/instant ... rator.html

Watch how the video background is whitened out!

This is what I've done so far: -

I've recorded my video footage with a green chroma key cloth in the background.

Added the file to video studio 10 and put into the time line in overlay.

I've included a solid white colour in the video track

I click on the apply chroma key button and even after choosing the best colour and adjusting the colour similarity slider etc, I still cannot get a perfect white background. I'm sure you've all seen this effect as it is very popular now around the web.

What am I doing wrong and how do I get this effect to work right?

Regards

Kirk

[heinz-oz]

I'm not at all sure what exactly your problem is because your description is not accurate enough.

One thing though, TV broadcasting standards do not allow full primary colors, hence you will not be able to get absolute RED, GREEN and BLUE. Since RGB combined give you white but you can't have pure RGB, you won't get pure white either. Something close to it, yes, but not pure.

[alanball]

Hi kirk,

I can see what you are trying to do but not had much experiance with chroma key. I have read quite a bit about it and from that I think it can be quite difficult to get a clear white background due to reflections from your cloth backing and not being able to get a true matt plan colour with no graduation in colour. Blue seems to be one of the most used colours for chroma key, perhaps you would have better luck with blue if you could find someone that has one. I think I remember someone else with a similar question over the past week or so.

Sorry not much use but perhaps someone else with more experiance will pick this thread up.

Best of luck.

[sjj1805]

From the knowledge gained reading various posts and articles about Chroma keying, plus my experience of using Chroma keying - which is limited mainly to adding manufactured items to a video.

If you are going to film someone or something then the main item of concern isnt so much the color - it is the lighting. It is true that either Green or Blue are the most widely used backgrounds when filming with chroma key in mind, I did read an article somewhere explaining a reason for choosing these two colors, but technically it is still possible to use other colors.

The problem is shadows. The shadows will present a problem when keying out the background leaving a ragged edge around the person or thing being keyed out. for this reason you need plenty of lighting - and from different angles so that you eliminate shadows.

[kirksmith]

Thanks for the replys so far guys. I certainly agree that lighting will play a big part with this but it has also been suggested that the effect you see in the link I gave was done by using 'Secret Magic' which apparently adobe now owns. Also the word Alpha was mentioned.

Unfortunately the software required costs an arm and a leg.

I played around some more last night and managed to get the background pretty much keyed out white but still not completely.

Be interested to hear if anybody else has achieved this effect.

Kirk

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Kirk

Send a still image of your video so we can see the colours you are trying to remove.

[sjj1805]

..........
This is what I want to do here.. http://www.danlokrecommends.com/instant ... rator.html

Watch how the video background is whitened out!
............

You will get more help here if you place the sample video somewhere that our members do not have to join up in order to enjoy the benefit of your work!

There are a few places suggested here:
Members Samples

[kirksmith]

Never realized they had to sign up

Here is a different link that offers the same type of whitened background. Please have a look at this. By the way, in this link you will see Josh Anderson in a floating pop up. I'm not concerned about the pop up but just the white background effect. Here's that link: -

http://www.totalwebvideo.com/

regards

Kirk

[sjj1805]

Ah, now I can see what you are doing. I will get back to you later

[sjj1805]

Solved..... it was fairly simple in fact.

Step 1.
File | Preferences | background color
Set it to pure white 255,255,255

Step 2.
Add your prepared overlay video to an overlay track.
Here I used the sample video from VideoStudio 10+
(ignore the other items - this screen shot is borrowed from one of my tutorials)



next



Click the eyedropper tool and then click the preview on the right - the bit you want to chroma key out.

This is the bit I think you may have then overlooked --
To the right of the eyedropper is a percentage which defaults to 70
Alter it to 100.

[kirksmith]

Many thanks for that detailed reply. Indeed by changing the colour in preferences it did help the problem but I still didn't get a total white effect in the background. Certainly bet5ter than it was though.

I actually wonder if it may be an idea to use a white cover or something as a backing cloth instead of my green chroma cloth.

Any thoughts on that?

Kirk

[sjj1805]

No I would stick to the green cloth, I read somewhere on the internet the technical reason for selecting either green or blue but currently my broadband is down - I think it is due to heavy storms causing widespread flooding. I am currently connected by modem so things are a bit slow.

Try a Google search for chroma key, that's where I most likely found the explanation.

The thing I noticed when I used the sample chroma key clip provided with VideoStudio of the girl with the camcorder, is that when you apply the chroma key it defaults to 75% transparency so you don't get a bright white background. You have to alter it to 100%.

[GoldstoneMedia]

I've done quite a few chroma-keyed videos and getting the green 100% out has been extremely challenging. I tend to use video backgrounds instead of solid colors because it's easier. I did my Video Resume this way at http://goldstonemedia.com/video-resume.php

First, definitely stick to green or blue screen. There are nuances to colors which make green and blue preferable. I've only used green but I'm switching to blue because blue matches better with flesh tones. It's nice to have either option depending on your scene (color of clothing, lighting, etc). Some colors will go better with one or the other.

Next there are two issues... the first is with transparency and alpha channel for display on the web page such that the background on the video is transparent. That's done with Flash and Flash requires 32bit Video which VS does not do. If your web page is white then you can get away with keying and using a white background in the video but it won't be transparent it will be white (or whatever color you use).

In Photoshop you can key multiple colors out which makes it super easy to remove every shade of green or blue from a still photo and have it perfectly keyed. With VS I don't see a way to select multiple colors so you are stuck with keying the one color and changing the percentage for color similarity.

The trick to keying well, is having your backdrop evenly lit so that you have a constant shade of the same color. That means even light, even reflection of light and no shadows. Otherwise you get the green or blue spillage which prevents the 100% keying due to those areas not being exactly the same color or shade of green or blue (due to lighting).

I made a light-bar on top of my desk with lots of light which includes a full spectrum daylight florescent and a few daylight bulbs. It's not perfect yet and I have to adjust depending on what color I wear. My camera seems to do well with my orange shirt ... but a white shirt catches some of the green screen. It's quite annoying because it's a fine line between not enough light and too much light or not having light in the right place.

Good lighting then!

[kirksmith]

Hey George!

Firstly let me just say great video by the way promoting your resume.

I like the effect in the intro where you blend into the forefront from the back. Is that some sort of fade in effect?

OK, regarding the transparent or white out effect background that I've been after. Glad to say that I got it almost perfect and I'm just putting the finishing touches to a video I'm creating.

But get this! I never got the white out effect using video studio 10. I actually achieved this effect very easily but to do it I used Media Studio Pro 8 and I have to say the result is fantastic.

Thanks for all the replys by the way and in particular to Steve.

Video is very new to me and I'm loving every bit of it.

By the way, completely off topic but has anyone ever tried adobe premier plus? I played about with it last week and I wasn't very impressed with it. I found it incredibly difficult to understand with too much of a learning curve. I think for the time being I'll stick with VS10 and Media Studio Pro.

I'm actually quite surprised that Media Pro 8 isn't more popular than it is. Not many people I spoke to seemed to even know what it was and yet it seems such a powerful program for the price it retails at.

Thanks Guys

Kirk

[GoldstoneMedia]

Thanks Kirk!

I discovered that green-screen-dissolve-in effect by accident. It's in an overlay track and since you can't do transitions in an overlay directly I'm used to first doing the transitions in a separate project on a primary track and then importing that project into an overlay track.

I wanted to fade myself in so on the overlay project I did a green color (matching greenscreen) then crossfade to the video (see image). It didn't quite fade in like I planned but I liked the effect so I kept it. I use a similar procedure to dissolve-out to achieve a "beam out" effect in my Personal Interests clip on the same Video Resume.

[/img]

I wanted to try Media Studio to see if it handled chromakey better but I installed the trial and forgot about it... the trial period past and I never got to try it ;-( I should just bite the bullet and buy it.