Struggling with Keying Hair Details in Challenging Footage – Need Advice

[ijav]

Hi

Could you please take a look at this footage and share your feedback?

I've been trying to key out the background and have spent days watching various tutorials and practicing, but nothing seems to be working.

I'm particularly struggling with the hair, as I keep losing details in that area.

I understand that the footage may not be ideal, but is it possible to key it out perfectly, or am I just wasting my time?

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

I would duplicate the footage layer. On the top copy, add Lumetri and increase the saturation and contrast. Add curves and adjust the green curve to give you a very saturated shot with a lot of detail. Then add Keylight, set the View to Combined Matte, Pick the background green, adjust the Screen Gain, Screen Ballance, and at least the first five properties under Screen Matte, and maybe even sample the edges for Despil and Alpha Bias.

When you get a really good black-and-white image, go to the bottom copy and set the top copy of the footage (the black-and-white layer) as an Alpha Track Matte for the original footage. 

Any time you have a poorly lit greenscreen shot, do what you can to improve the edge contrast and sharpen the image before you start using any keying effects. Generate a good matte to remove the background instead of trying to use the original footage.

Here's my speeded-up workflow:

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[ijav]

Thanks for your support; it helps a lot.