After Effects Color Keying Out White (inside of objects and out)

Eesh. That's a tough one.

Well, I'd like to add to the list of possible options!

In recent versions of Photoshop, this sort of work has gotten a lot easier. For example, with your example, I went to the Select menu and chose "Subject". It automatically generated this.

Now, that's left some holes you need to punch through, but it's a good starting point.

Literally less that five minutes of playing around in the new Select and Mask workspace, I got this:

You can always tweak stuff like this, but it doesn't take much time to get halfway decent results in Photoshop.

Now, this is a no-go if you're doing video, but it's handy for just doing stills.

If you want to do it in AE, have I got a crazy tip for you: The Paint Bucket effect!

It's a very underused little tool, but it's got some handy uses.

One instance of the effect looks almost identical to "Select>Subject" in Photoshop. A few more instances and:

Better for video, but the more instances of it you need to use, the longer time it'll take (and, if you're needing to punch tiny holes in a moving video...)

Anyway, here's the file to see how to do it: Dropbox - Paint Bucket on badly lit model.aep

Have you tried using the "select object" function in Photoshop?  It's incredibly smart and always surprises me.  This image seems like a perfect job for it.

Just select the magic wand tool and the "select object" button will appear up on the task bar or menu bar or whatever its called.

Obviously once it's selected you have to invert the selection and delete it.  Then save it in a format with an alpha channel.   Create an action for it.  Batch process....Mind blown

If you've got loads of these to do on a regular basis - and it sounds like you do, first priority is to have a word with your photographer. With a bit of co-operation you could make this massively faster.

If the models have many reflective parts shooting them against a different background - even chromakey green - wont help as the curved edges will reflect the green bg.

I think the best way for you to do this is photographically - with two shots for each model:

Set up some lighting so you can shoot the model twice - with the camera locked down.

1. Shoot the model as above (Beauty shot)

2. Switch lighting to shoot the model against the bright white background - but with the model itself as un-lit and dark as possible - so you end up with a silhouette of the model against white.

In AE:

Layer 1: Silhouette.

Layer 2: beauty shot - set TrkMat menu to 'Luma matte inverted'

Job done.