changing the background

[larryn58205743]

I DID read some info on this in the Elements documentation, but simply cannot get it to work. I'm starting with a very basic video, so I can see how this works. I just took a 10 second of video of myself. Of course, there is the background in this picture, such as the rest of my room, with me talking in the center of the picture.

I now want to take any landscape picture, and I have chosen such a picture, not another video. I have imported this into my project. I have tried choosing this "difference matte" function and dropped this into either the video of me speaking or later just into the landscape pic I chose. I even changed the postion of each, with the video of myself being on the video 2 line, and other times having it on the video 1 line (with the landscape picture on the other line.) I still have no idea how to make only my face  appear in the final result, and have the background around me just consist of the landscape pic in the other video bar. 

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

LNovik

[Peru Bob]

You need to have a green screen behind you. Then you can key it out. 

This is for Premiere Pro, but it can be done in Premiere Elements.

https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/video/discover/how-to-use-green-screen.html

See here too:

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-elements/using/superimposing-transparency.html#superimposing_and_tr...

[Bill Sprague]

This YouTube might help.  It covers a couple different ways to do it.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjW4UGBZCCI

[larryn58205743]

Thank you for these replies, but I did not find them useful enough to help me. I believe the first video from Bob Peru rec’ed I do my video with an actual green background. The last time I saw one of those was during my CNN tour in Atlanta about 20 years ago. I guess I could buy a very large piece of green oak tag or something, but I was hoping for something less cumbersome. The 2nd video Bob Peru gave me was something I had already seen, but I was not able to do anything with any of those choices.

Bill Sprague sent me a link to what I thought looked like an excellent video on how to do change backgrounds. However, in the very first step, it said to just import your green screen picture or video--I believe specifically he said to import your chroma key shot. I obviously do not have a video or picture with a green background.

I DID see a good reply somewhere that suggested using the Ultra Key effect to create a green background. However, my 2019 Adobe Premiere Elements version does not seem to have an Ultra keying effect choice. I have looked all over for it, though it’s possible I’ve missed it, since others have said they have an ultra effect in their versions. I did look under the Keying effects section of the Effects section, as well as under other sections.

Thanks.

LNovik

[Peru Bob]

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@larryn58205743 wrote:

using the Ultra Key effect to create a green background.

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Ultra Key is a Premiere Pro effect, not Premiere Elements. It doesn't create a green background.

It is similar to Chroma Key.  You would still need a green or other color background for it to be useful.

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@larryn58205743 wrote:

I obviously do not have a video or picture with a green background.

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You really would need to use an application like After Effects with rotoscope or rotobrush to key out your background.  Depending upon the footage, it could be a very labor intensive task.

[larryn58205743]

OK. Thanks for explaining that.

LNovik

[larryn58205743]

Sorry to keep this going again, but I just found another video on the subject; I'm sure there are many. This was was entitled, remove backgrounod in premiere elements.

It says to use the  8 point garbage matte. I  tried this and was  easily able to get rid of the background on my video. However, when I tried to experiement with getting a colored matte in the background--as they showed in the video--I was unable to get that to work. I DID find the matte, but could not get it to just display in the background. I suspect if I can get a matte to display in the background, I can get another backtround pic to work the same. And, by the way, he was using Premiere Elements.

Thanks.

LNovik

[Peru Bob]

Make sure the color matte is on a video track below the main video.

Can you post a link to the tutorial?

[larryn58205743]

I'll try out what you suggested in a little while. For now, the link to that video is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2pf21tCiUQ&t=58s&ab_channel=wiredboy27

Thanks.

LNovik

[larryn58205743]

I now just went back to my project and tried--as you suggested---putting the matte in a track underneath the simple video I had made and carved out using that 8 point garbage matte. It did work this time, in that I could see the matte as the background. I then tried the same without a matte, but with a picture of a landscape. That also worked, so that the landscape was in the background, but did not cover the video of me in the middle. I will have to make some adjustments, as are mentioned in the video I gave the link to above. So, I'm not there yet, but steadily making good progress. Thanks for that helpful hint of putting the matte below. I just don't know this program well enough to think of these things. I use Adobe for music videos, but spend most of my time doing the audio part.

LNovik

[larryn58205743]

I apprecicate, Peru Bob, your asking for that link to the video I saw about this whole process.

So first, I dragged in the 8 step Garbage matte onto the video of my face and upper body, and adjusted the points to get as close to my body as possible. I then dragged in the RBB difference key to get rid of the areas around me that were not completely removed by the first step. However, as I try to get rid of the unwanted background area by moving the Smoothing slider to the right, I get black specks that turn into bigger "smudges" all over my face. In the example on that video,  doing that Smoothing step while set to "large" seemed to erase all the unwanted stuff magically like pulling up on the blade of a window cleaner-without affecting the subject in the middle

Thanks for you interest; hopefully it's not waning too much.

LNovik

[Peru Bob · Accepted solution]

In the example on that video,  doing that Smoothing step while set to "large" seemed to erase all the unwanted stuff magically like pulling up on the blade of a window cleaner-without affecting the subject in the middle

By @larryn58205743

That's because that video chosen works well using the workflow presented.

They wouldn't pick a video that didn't work perfectly for a demonstration like that.

Some videos don't work as well as others.

[larryn58205743 · Accepted solution]

Ahhh. OK, thanks for explaining that. So, I assume there is no dependable way to change a background unless I have some solid, preferably green screen behind the subject originally. Or else, as you said, I could go from frame to frame--or perhaps just every few frames when the subject moves a little--and perform that 16 point garbage matte again and again. If you think of anything else, please keep me in mind, though I realize that you have questions all the time and can't keep track of each one.

Thanks for all your time.

LNovik