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How do I remove greenscreen from a background?

Contributor ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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I am using the "select color range" to remove my green screen from the background. I selected the middle eyedropper (because the green screen was unevenly lit) and "invert". The problem I am having is that the subject is also being selected. How can I just remove the green from the background without affecting the subject?

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Advocate , Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

Just uose any selection tool. Quick Selection, Magic Wand, Color Range, Quick Mask, Pen, Lasso (depends of your subject) you can also use channel,

If you select your subject (in new version of Photoshop you can even use Select Subject Command) then go to Select & Mask Command to adjust jour selection. If you do if use CTRL+J and move your subject on a new layer.

Then you can select background and change color any way you want. You can even drag and drop new background from any image or selection

Pa

...

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Contributor ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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It's not letting me duplicate a channel. Which channel am I duplicating, by the way??

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Community Expert ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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Hi

The others showed how to remove the background. D.Fosse showed that select color range works well for this. To sharpen up the mask you can brush with white and black directly onto the mask with the brush in overlay mode.

To remove the green color contamination, add an empty layer above the masked subject. Set that empty layer to color blending mode. Alt Click on the border between the two layers, in the layers panel, so that a small down arrow appears. This clips the new layer so brushing on it only shows where the pixels are not masked in the layer below.

Now take a small soft brush and Alt click to pick up colour from the subject and brush over the green edges.

Dave

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Community Expert ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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And you can mask that layer to keep the paint off the subject good area. Clipped, Masked and blended a good die job.

JJMack

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Community Expert ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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This is how I tend to remove colour bleed from selection edges.

Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.  Either use the 'Master' drop down, or the little hand icon, and select the problem colour range.  You can fine tune on the sliders at the bottom of the panel.

Reduce saturation, and adjust Lightness to match surrounding pixels.

Then invert the layer mask to fill with black.

Ctrl click the selection so you have marching ants around the periphery, and stroke that selection with white using Centre.

You can feather the mask to soften the transition, but it generally works out that colour range selections have remarkably little affect on surrounding pixels

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Community Expert ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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Hi

I tend to use the "brush on a colour blend layer" more than Hue/Sat because I can brush with different colours as I work around the edges. It may take slightly longer than a single Hue/Sat adjustment but with a brush,  hair gets the local hair colour (or several colours as I work round) , skin gets the local skin colour, fabric gets the local fabric colour etc

Dave

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Community Expert ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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Do not know if there is a best method  all I know is you want to confine  the adjustment to the layer mask area that Trevor shows the  edge area the spill area the bleed area whatever. For me its best to use a neutral chroma key color. I'm no longer a working man I retired from that. Blue and green is more for video where spill does not look that bad at 30 frames per second.

JJMack

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Contributor ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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Hmmm. You mean you can use white instead of green screen?

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Community Expert ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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davescm  wrote

I tend to use the "brush on a colour blend layer" more than Hue/Sat

Yes, that's how I would do it too. In fact I started doing just that with my post above - but then I thought, "nah, I can't be doing all the work here" 

But I like Norman's Lab method too.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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I did not explore his lab method for what he posted was over sharpened and the jaggies set in.

JJMack

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Contributor ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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I liked the results from the lab method but I got confused trying to follow the steps, especially since I haven't tried this before.

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Contributor ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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It's not working for me. Isn't there a simpler way to do this? I just updated Photoshop.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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Yes. I suggested Lab when you said you did not have the latest version of PS.

It seems it is a bit too advanced for you at this time.

Since you now have the latest version installed, then choose the Quick Selection tool and, as I said in Post #2 , do Stepe 1, 2,  3, and 4 shown below. it may take a few seconds for Step 1 to show marching ants. That is normal. The entire method takes a minute or two.

new.png

If you want to tweak the result between Steps 2 and 3, feel free.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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Capture.jpg

As I wrote the green spill it hard to deal with a white or gray chroma key background key work better for still images

JJMack

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Contributor ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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The pictures help somewhat but I don't fully understand what you're doing here.

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Contributor ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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You're probably right but I need to get this one fixed cause I can't reshoot.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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Select the green Screen: Choose: select inverse make sure you use the quick selection tool or the correct tolerance with the magic want.

Go to Select and mask View the selection and if need fix it in the same window..

Choose layer Mask and click ok.

While it is with the layer mask you can still update and modify the selection!!

Chana

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Community Expert ,
Feb 13, 2018 Feb 13, 2018

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comp.png

Since you are interested in the Lab Color approach, here is some additional information adding images to the list of steps provided earlier.

Click on the image to see them in a larger size.

1. Duplicate the image layer and then change Image > Mode to Lab Color (Don’t flatten)

     Fig 1. RGB duplicate layer

     Fig 2. Lab Mode

2. Choose Channels and drag the  a  channel down to make a copy

     Fig 3. The "a" channel was duplicated

3. Choose Image > Adjustments > Curves and click on Auto

     Fig 4. Curves. Duplicate "a" channel. Clicked on Auto

4. Increase the contrast as shown. Mask is complete without brushwork.

     Fig 5. Curve made more vertical. No brushwork. Mask is complete

     Fig 6. Top: Lab Channels panel.

5. Return to RGB color

     Fig 6. Bottom. RGB Channels panel

6. Place a new layer below the top layer, turn off the eye on the bottom layer

     Fig 7. Shows top 2 layers. Bottom layer not shown. Does not contribute to the result

7. Apply the mask to the top layer

     Fig 7. Mask applied.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 14, 2018 Feb 14, 2018

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Great! I use it as well !

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New Here ,
Jun 26, 2018 Jun 26, 2018

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Hi,

To get a better result much faster, there is a plugin for Photoshop which will automatically remove the green screen as well as any green spill on your subject. It's called KEY36 and can be downloaded from 36pix.com/KEY36. You can do up to 50 extractions for free and then if you like it, you can purchase more.

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Explorer ,
Jul 25, 2018 Jul 25, 2018

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The ridiculous thing about this is that the best/fastest way to do this is to not use Photoshop at all. Just import the photo into After Effects, use Keylight plugin and remove the background/spill all in one super quick step, and then export the single frame in the format of your choice. Why Photoshop doesn't have a similar plugin is totally mindboggling to me.

See below: This took about 1.5 minutes of work using After Effects and Keylight with Advanced Spill suppressor. One step. No painting out spill, no slow multistep process. Clean results:

IMG_0006.jpg

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Community Expert ,
Jul 25, 2018 Jul 25, 2018

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That is a very small image.  Does After Effects and Keylight with advance Spill suppressor work on a large Tiff or RAW  Smart Object  in ProPhoto RGB 16 bit color depth?

JJMack

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Explorer ,
Jul 25, 2018 Jul 25, 2018

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Sure does. In fact, you can work in 32 bit color depth in ProPhoto color space if you want. And yes you can import RAW or TIFF formats. 

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Community Expert ,
Jul 25, 2018 Jul 25, 2018

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So one need to evaluate if adding the cost of of an other Adobe product (AE) is justified for the amount of green screen removal one does.

JJMack

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New Here ,
Jan 20, 2019 Jan 20, 2019

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I have been using Adobe Premiere's Ultra Key effect to remove green screens as it seems to do the job rather well (add it to the image on timeline and export the frame, if stills, etc). Better than I have been able to do in Ps, but I am an intermediate at best. Would you care to detail the steps you took in Ae? I have been playing around with it trying to figure out how you did it since it looks very clean. I added Keylight and it removed all of the green! I tried toggling the transparency grid and exporting, but I continue to get a black background. I also added in advanced spill suppressor, but did not see much of a difference form the Keylight effect only. Thanks in advance!

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Community Beginner ,
Mar 07, 2023 Mar 07, 2023

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LATEST

The process of removing a greenscreen background is easier than removing any other type of background. Because green screen is not very complex compared to any other background, I would recommend you to use 'Quick Action Tool'. Steps below: (Full Article Link: 5 Quick Ways: Remove Background In Photoshop)

 

Step No.1: Open your photo in Photoshop. In the bottom right ‘layer’s section’, right-click on that photo’s layer and click on ‘Duplicate Layer’. In the popup dialogue box, give the new layer a name and click on ‘Ok’. This will create a new duplicate layer above your original layer.

photoshop-quick-action-tool-background-remove-1-768x432.jpg

 

Step No.2: Just above the layer’s section, you will see a tab called ‘Properties’. Scroll down in the properties tab. Inside ‘Quick Action’ you will find a button called ‘Remove Background’, Click on it. (If you don’t see the ‘Properties Tab’, enable it in the ‘Windows’ section of photoshop’s topmost menu bar.)

photoshop-quick-action-tool-background-remove-3-768x432.jpg

 

Step No.3: In the layer’s section, click on the ‘eye icon’ in front of your Original Layer to hide it. (not the duplicate one). Once you do this, you will see the background is now removed.

photoshop-quick-action-tool-background-remove-2-768x432.jpg

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