Welcome to Final Cut Pro X in under 5 minutes.
My name is Mark Spencer.
Now for a real challenge, we'll look at how to key out a white background instead of a green
screen.
This is a video clip from istockphoto.com.
Now, istockphoto.com has many clips shot on white like this one, which can
present more of a challenge.
In addition, this clip has also been heavily compressed.
You'll find that it's almost impossible to create a good key, but let's see how far we
can get.
Final Cut Pro X includes a Luma Keyer in the same keying category that is designed specifically
to remove the lighter or darker parts of an image.
However, I find that the Keyer effect can actually do a better job on this kind of shot,
since it contains all the tools and the Luma Keyer and a few more to boot.
Apply the Keyer Effect.
The automatic settings don't work so well this time.
Set the Strength to zero.
In the viewer, hold down the shift key, and drag a box on the white background.
The white is very even so it doesn't really matter where you draw the box or how large
it is.
As long as it doesn't touch any part of the woman or else she'll disappear along with
the background.
There's still a lot of white in her hair.
Hold down the command key and drag an edge sample across her hair and then adjust it.
That's better, but there is still a lot of white.
You may find as you adjust it that the woman's forehead turns grey since it's becoming
transparent.
Switch to the Matte view.
Increase the Fill Hole slider slightly to make the inside of the matte white.
Then increase the Edge Distance slider all the way to get the detail back into the hair.
Skim the clip.
You may still see her teeth or her earring remember, we're keying out the brightest part
of the image so her bright teeth and jewelry are getting keyed out as well.
You aren't going to be able to fix those areas with the Fill Holes parameter, so let's hold
off on that for now.
Switch back to the Composite view.
In the Color Selection tools you can try adjusting the Luma graph by dragging on the curve on
the lower handle.
But using the Edge Sample in the viewer is much more intuitive and does the same thing.
Notice how the Luma graph changes as you adjust it.
One thing the Edge Sample does not effect however is the luma rolloff.
So you can try adjusting that.
But there is still a lot of white fringing around the hair.
Close the Color Selection tools and open the Matte tools.
Set Shrink/Expand to about -5 to shrink the Matte, then set soften to about one and try
a few different values for Erode.
These settings introduce transparency into her hair but at least they eliminate the
white fringing.
Close the Matte tools.
Spill Suppression won't help here with the white background, so let's skip it and open Light Wrap.
Set the amount to about 4.
Ok now switch to the Matte view and skim the clip.
You'll see by the black areas that we have all kinds of transparency we need to deal
with.
We'll attempt to create a hold out matte, a smaller, all white matte inside the main
matte.
Switch back to the Composite view.
Press the up arrow to move the playhead to the start of the clip.
Press command C to copy, then press option V to paste as a connected clip.
Select the connected clip and in the inspector, increase Fill Holes to 10.
And set the Edge Distance to zero to create a solid white matte.
Now, we need the matte to be smaller so it's always inside the matte on the lower clip.
In the matte tools, set Shrink/Expand to -40.
The slider won't go that far so you either need to drag in the value field or type the
value in.
Set Soften to 10, and Erode to 10.
If you skip the clip, you should now have a soft white blob, meaning that everything
inside it should be fully opaque now.
Switch to the Composite view.
Skim the clip.
It's far from perfect, but we've managed to remove most of the white fringing and keep
the core matte solid.
Not bad for such a heavily compressed clip on a white background.
To really make this key work we need to key frame the various parameters on almost a frame
by frame basis.