Chroma Key question....

Ok....doing some experimenting with chroma key using a green screen (also tried blue). One of the issues I'm finding is that it generally works well except when someone has longer, light colored hair and it is loose so that the background is able to be seen through the hair. I can't figure out a way to complete isolate the hair from the background and still make it look natural....and I'm not even sure if it's possible. I'll attach an enlarged portion of photo that exhibits the problem. Is there any way to do this and make it look good?

IMAGE LINK: http://s65.photobucket​.com …2/media/AT7A190​8.jpg.html

What keying software or approach are you using currently? what does the red channel of your image look like? Is there enough contrast in the red channel to tease out a difference? How about red+blue (opposite of green)- the hair will be light in all channels and the green background will be dark in red (less so in blue). There are also apps that are specifically used for solving these kinds of issues, although I have only used them in after effects and not photoshop. However, I think some of the more common ps ones are made by topaz and on one - maybe folks here have some experience with these apps/plug ins.

Kirk

kirkt wrote in post #17346009
What keying software or approach are you using currently? what does the red channel of your image look like? Is there enough contrast in the red channel to tease out a difference? How about red+blue (opposite of green)- the hair will be light in all channels and the green background will be dark in red (less so in blue). There are also apps that are specifically used for solving these kinds of issues, although I have only used them in after effects and not photoshop. However, I think some of the more common ps ones are made by topaz and on one - maybe folks here have some experience with these apps/plug ins.

Kirk

Thanks for the response. I'm currently using PS6 and my process is to select the green color range and create a new layer that masks out the green BG. This works quite well until I run into hair like this. I would welcome any additional suggestions on how to do this better or better software options to use

Also.....while I do not have image editing turned on, please feel free to play around with the posted sample and show me what can be done with hair isolation if you feel the desire. Thanks!

Here is the red channel, taken from your JPEG-compressed post. As you can see, it provides a ton of contrast - without all of the compression artifact you could probably pull a pretty good key. You are fighting the vague edge of the channel mask because of DOF blur - you may need to feather and contract the mask edge to pull a convincing edge on the key.

If the hair gets lost in the very darkest edges, you could apply a curves adjustment or some similar move to get the edge contrast in the red channel that works for you - the image itself might look terrible, but you would be making the move to get the best edges for the mask, not for a final image.

kirk

Also note that with wispy hair like that, it's not important to preserve every last flyaway hair and stray lock. Make the masking easier by cleaning those up and masking them out altogether, and none of the viewers will be the wiser.

It's not good advice for the purposes of education, but it's very practical when it comes to doing the "real" work.

jra wrote in post #17346962
Also.....while I do not have image editing turned on, please feel free to play around with the posted sample and show me what can be done with hair isolation if you feel the desire. Thanks!

Here's my attempt at it using Perfect Photo Suite on the jpeg that you provided:

Mask only.