Green screen or chromakey: Manual methods, or plug-ins?

Hi,

I'm trying to get my head around a process for extracting a subject from a green screen. I think my lighting is good, but I still don't have good masking techniques. A simple "select color range" hasn't worked very well, and I haven't been able to find any good tutorials - the Youtube tutorials I've found are all out-of-date or just bad, and there seems to be nothing on lynda.com. (I don't have kelbytraining).

Any tips on a process for extraction from a green screen? I'm using LR4 and Photoshop CS5.

Or, recommend me a plugin that's worthwhile?

Green-screen is not a big part of my work, so I don't really want to invest hundreds into spftware for it. Of course, on the other hand, if I can get it down to a quick-n-easy science, maybe it COULD be a bigger part of what I do.

Here's a sample shot - any critiques on the lighting would be appreciated.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/nathancarter/8​250766705/

I know you said it didn't work well, but I think selecting a color range should work quite well for this image. When you first get into the Select Color Range workspace, make sure the left-hand eyedropper is pressed. That will remove any assumptions PS makes as soon as you click. Then, click on the greenscreen. Because there's shading, you probably won't have selected the whole thing, but that's okay. Now, click on the middle eyedropper. That will ADD to the selection as you click in other areas of the green screen. I'm thinking that may be the step you're missing.

Also, turn the Fuzziness slider down to about 10. If it's set high, then way too much of the pic will be selected.

At the end of the process and back in the pic, click on QuickMask mode so you can erase the mask from the letter "O".

Did that work?

You could try using the green channel as a starting point for creating your mask.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll give them both a shot.

Kirk, I hadn't thought about the green channel. It never occurs to me to work with the different channels, but from seeing your work and suggestions posted in other threads, I DO grasp how powerful they can be. I gotta start getting my head around using them effectively.

I think part of the trouble is that I'm extremely picky about the final results. I want to be able to keep every stray flyaway hair if I so choose; I want the lighting and shadowing and color matching to be so believable that nobody but me ever suspects it was a green screen. Fortunately, the backgrounds we've chosen for this set SHOULD work pretty well, if I can get the masking right.

Good results with hair are not easy to achieve, no matter what tools or programs you have. I would humbly suggest that you start practicing, and quite a bit, in order to gain speed and technique. It will never be fast with the tools that are currently available.

Give the trial of Fxhome Photokey a shot. It will remove the greenscreen as soon as you import your photo.
Also be sure to light your greenscreen well, seperately from lighting your subject.

Car2n wrote in post #15338612
Give the trial of Fxhome Photokey a shot. It will remove the greenscreen as soon as you import your photo.
Also be sure to light your greenscreen well, seperately from lighting your subject.

I am new to this and have been having some good success with the above. There are tutorials to help with the program on their site, as well.

Greenscreen video and photo is about 75% of what my company does for commercial/industrial clients. Agree that the screen lighting is not ideal on this but there is good separation. For future, light the screen first as evenly as possible. Don't over light the screen. And have your subject as far away from the screen as possible.
Aside from the mentioned techniques within PS, I will second that for photos, PhotoKey is pretty darn good.
One thing that would help programs like Photokey would be to put a soft backlight behind the subject. This will give the edges more detail and especially on the hair will make it stand out from the background. With the resolution of stills, there should be no issue pulling a good key even on hair. Just need the right lighting.