I’m editing a DSLR green screen footage in Premiere Pro CS5, and once everything is in place, I use Dynamic Link to key out the footage. Why not use Ultra Key? Well… Ultra Key is fantastic, fast, and GPU accelerated, however the footage needs to be close to perfect in order for it to work – which is not the case here. I had a lot of wrinkles, bad lighting that I couldn’t make any better due to space limitations in the room I was shooting in, and, as I mentioned before, I used a DSLR to record the footage so I had no control over the compression settings. All of this caused the footage to be a wee bit too difficult for Ultra Key to pull a decent key. Not to mention garbage mattes and adding Lightwrap to create the final look.

I’ve set up a nice workflow using Dynamic Link and a keying template I made for the project for quickly and efficiently replacing source footage to be keyed out, so now everything works smoothly, however it takes some time to render. I should mention this is 1080p @ 23,976fps. Eventhough the workflow is flawless, the footage was very demanding and required adjustments on every shot, digging through precomps, resampling colors, and doing a long RAM Preview to make sure nothing was missed.

Still… I couldn’t stand the fact, that having Premiere Pro CS5 with GPU accelerated keyer I was forced to use After Effects to do something that goes around as a “simple key” – as you see on the attached images, it’s just me sitting in front of a Mac (and yes – this is just a prop – I use PC’s for work).

So I thought to myself – would it be possible to use the same techniques I use in After Effects to pull a decent key out of “nothing” in Premiere Pro? As I learned about half an hour later – yes!

I created a super tight garbage matte, that I then applied to the original footage treated with Ultra Key, I’ve nested that in it’s own Sequence, which I’ve then put in a new Sequence along with the background, and even created a Lightwrap effect… in Premiere! Sweet!

I ended up having three Sequences for my final composite: one for background, one for the key, and one for putting them together and adding a lightwrap. I grabbed a piece of paper and started counting layers and effects applied.

This is where you should make sure you’re sitting down – I ended up with 9 video layers (1080p @ 23,976fps) with a total amount of 26 effects (including multiple copies of Guassian Blur and Ultra Key).

Guess what… it works in realtime. Thank you Mercury Engine.

Learn how to make your keyed out footage blend better with the background by casting light on it from surrounding elements

Click here to watch the video tutorial

Light wrapping is something everyone should know about and learn how to do. It greatly improves the quality of your compositions by making them look more believable.

In this tutorial I will show you a quick and easy way of creating great looking light wrap effect without using any 3rd party plugins (with exception of CyCoreFX which you should already have by default). The results are fantastic and you can easily compare them to many expensive commercial plugins out there that do the same thing. But that’s not all…

After over a year of providing free content I thought it’s about time to give you a chance to say “Thank you”, so I also build a CustomEffect that you can buy for a low price. It’s even more advanced and powerful than what I show you in the tutorial. I provided some examples of what you can achieve when using ceLightWrap but to see the real power I really recommend watching the tutorial.

You can purchase ceLightWrap via PayPal. Sales are handled by a secure online shopping system – E-Junkie. After purchase you will be redirected to a download page. Each purchase is valid for two download attempts. The file you will be downloading will be a ZIP file with a polyCE file in it. You need to use CustomEffects Installer to be able to use the CustomEffect.

I hope you will choose the CustomEffect over the simple preset that I show you how to build in the tutorial and therefore you’ll take your part in keeping this site alive and providing new tutorials.

For installation instructions go to What CustomEffects are page.

Get CE LightWrap (CS3) for only 14.90 USD

If you haven’t used my Hotline yet than you have a chance to see how it works. Also you will learn how to key out a difficult footage.

Click here to watch the video tutorial

Even at this small thumbnail image you can see how poor the quality of the footage is. How do you key out something as nasty as this? Watch the tutorial to find out.

You also might like to know that this tutorial is made without any editing. One of my viewers – Bogdan from Chicago – requested this tutorial on his Hotline Session (that’s where the name of the tutorial came from). Fortunately I was also working on a simmilar case myself and I’ve planned to show it to you anyway, so here it is.

This tutorial uses Key Correct Pro – a set of plugins from Red Giant Software. If you buy them at Toolfarm using the provided link you will support me and this site, so please do. Key Correct Pro can be replaced with standard AE keying plugins, but it really makes the job easier. I recommend you at least take a look at them. If you like to follow this tutorial without them, than I suggest downloading my PixelSampler to get a better screen color.