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1. Re: Very tricky key
Todd_Kopriva Dec 30, 2010 10:22 PM (in response to dkmiles)Break it into pieces. Deal with the hair separately.
Check out Mark Christiansen's three-pass method:
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1252172
There are some other resources on this page that might be helpful:
"Keying overview and resources"
If worse comes to worst, check out this Scott Squires article about rotoscoping hair:
http://postandvfxskills.com/rotoscoping-hair/
And, finally, have a chat with the folks responsible for shooting this about how their hair and shooting decisions have made life difficult for you. It may help for next time.
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2. Re: Very tricky key
Mylenium Dec 31, 2010 1:14 AM (in response to Todd_Kopriva)And, finally, have a chat with the folks responsible for shooting this about how their hair and shooting decisions have made life difficult for you. It may help for next time.
Agree! A simple orange/red/purple rim-light would have increased edge contrast considerably and can be dialled back to clean blond without too much trouble and doesn't skew the skin tones beyond recognition, either.
Mylenium
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3. Re: Very tricky key
dkmiles Dec 31, 2010 5:28 AM (in response to dkmiles)Many thanks for the tips guys! Yes, no doubt a little pre-production planning could have helped this immensely.
Happy New Year!
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4. Re: Very tricky key
Rick Gerard Jan 3, 2011 10:51 PM (in response to dkmiles)Sorry it took me so long to answer this post. Hollidays.
For future reference blonds usually key better against blue.
That said, Don't try and pull this off with a single layer. Duplicate your footage about 3 times. pull a key for just the hair on the top layer, make an intermediate key for the second layer bringing in more of the details of the hair, then on the third layer pull a key that cleanly cuts out the rest of the actor.
Once you have each of these keys pulled set Keylight to display combined matte, then screen the top and second layer over the bottom layer. Now pre-compose these 3 layers and use them as a track matte for the original footage. This will give you much greater control over the edges.
As a final step you can apply keylight one last time but this time you will only use Keyight to despill the track matte.
If you can post a full rez still I'll throw together a CS5 project file to show you how I'd do it.
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5. Re: Very tricky key
dkmiles Jan 4, 2011 4:56 AM (in response to Rick Gerard)Hey Rick -- surprisingly they pulled a key in the Avid which the client deemed acceptable. So I stood down on this.
However, I would be most interested in learning and understanding the technique you describe for future reference. So I'd be very grateful if you are willing to take the time to set up the demo in AEP CS5.
You can grab the full rez still here...
http://www.c4miles.tv/CB/Cyndi_still.psd
Many thanks!!!
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6. Re: Very tricky key
Rick Gerard Jan 5, 2011 2:50 AM (in response to dkmiles)You'll find a CS5 project file here.
I chose a background image with some strong contrast and lighting. As I stated in the previous post the matte was generated with 3 copies of the original footage using the combined matte screened over a black solid. This matte was also used to generate a simple light wrap matte that was placed above a blurred copy of the background layer. I hope this gives you some ideas. Without actually having the footage and knowing what background you're using it's hard to get it perfect.
Also please note the use of a garbage matte to make the keying a bit easier. This screen shot has PAR correction turned off.
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7. Re: Very tricky key
dkmiles Jan 5, 2011 6:38 AM (in response to Rick Gerard)Many thanks for doing this and sharing your expertise Rick!!!
This is going to be very helpful in the future.





