Green Screen Program

[Zat_AJ]

Hi. I'm new. I use pinnacle studio 8 to edit my home and school movies. I was just wonder what the best program to use with a green screen is. I want to get some green fabric but I can't find a good simple program that will remove all of the green from my digital videos and insert a picture or video of my choice where the green used to be. Could somebody please help me find a viable program?

Thank you for all of your help.

[FireRaven]

after effects does this pretty well.

here's a very good tutorial that covers keying with light spills for blending the front image with any background...

http://www.creativecow.net/show.php?page=/articles/dewar_john/light_spill/index.html

premiere pro also has a basic set of keying effects for doing it, but you can do much more with ae.

ae is just very cpu comsuming for me.

[Zat_AJ]

I agree, I all ready tried that. I spent a month learning it but I couldn't even get text to move accross the screen. So I gave up on After Effects. Thanks for the suggestion though.

[FireRaven]

ae game me beautiful results i found. play around with color ranges, use the ink sucker tools to clearer results.

but that's just my opinion.
hope you find what you're looking for.

[Zat_AJ]

My problem is that it's just so confusing. The totorials talk as if I know how to use it all ready.

[Zat_AJ]

So does anyone else know of any ways I could do this?

[Zat_AJ]

Hmmm... I guess not.

[megamachine]

You asked for the best program, and I guess After Effects is one of the best for high end video editing, though Canopus is coming out with some great stuff and giving Adobe a run for its money. In fact, I was just messing around with the entry level Canopus thingy called Let's Edit, and it has a rudimentary keying feature that is actually not bad for fun stuff, but I guess it depends on what you want to do and how sophisticated an effect you need.

[out2llunge]

You can buy proper chromakey paint (in blue or green) from William F. Whites (sorry don't know the web addy), but it ain't cheap. Perhaps talk to a local production house or maybe your school to see if they have some. A gallon was about $80 when I made a chromakey screen.

[Zat_AJ]

Well it's not the screen, so much as a good easy program that I'm looking for. But I guess AF is the only one.

[Zat_AJ]

Well thank you anyway guys.

[Zat_AJ]

Too bad I lost my copy of AF to try to learn it again.

[Zat_AJ]

Woops.. sorry for the tripple post.

[Zat_AJ]

Well I guess nobody else has anything to say... LIVE LONG AND PROSPER!

[TreeFrog]

So this post is a little late but..

Ive been using Vegas Video (now a SONY product) for 5 years and its keying (Chroma Key) capacity is very robust, quite selective and produces some great results.

Like any keyer your results will depend on the quality of the captured image and the pure even quality of the gree/blue screen behind the principal image.

TIP: Use lots of light to evenly dispense the key colour behind the principal image, it MUST be even, and a little backlight to seperate the keybackground from the principal will help stop that annoting and impossible to remove 'bleeding' from the edge of your principal.

Vegas has some quirks but very few failings and Vegas is so EASY TO USE with fantastic results!

Cheers!