Green Screen Software Blog

Try one of the plugins for Photoshop, or a stand alone program like Green Screen Wizard.

You need a chroma key green background.
Even lighting that covers the background with no hot spots
Lighting to duplicate that of the background you will be using in post production.

You will need some kind of software for inserting the keyed background later

A tripod and camera.

Basically you are substituting the chroma key background for a standard background, so all the other studio equipment will be the same.

Anything thats like 50 dollars??

I’d like to recommend AVS Video Editor to you, I always use it to edit video and make funny video for uploading to Youtube, it’s easy to use and the quality is awesome, you can crop, cut, join, edit video with it easily. It also embeds many special effects, you can even add text to video or add background music, that’s pretty cool. It worth a try

http://www.avs-video-editor.org/

Hope it helps. Contact me if you have any other question

You can use Wax 2.0 for that. You can edit the green screen it has a lot of nice effects with it You can do some cool editing for your movie`s and it is free .You can get Wax 2.0 here.

http://www.debugmode.com/wax/

And here are some tutorial`s that can help you with wax 2.0 and the Green screen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4U-BPTVuBQ&feature=related

I hope this can help you.

JIM–I see the transparency feature, but I can’t find where you can just turn the green background transparent. What am I missing?

You can do this using an editor like Paint.NET

I was thinking about getting a green screen for a project I am doing. I didn’t want to by a Green Screen until I new if there was a free Green Software available. If there is, please give me the website URL/web address.

Yes, their is one. It’s called Wax, for Windows. It’s all over the internet, and it’s for Windows. Free, you should never aim that high, but Wax is all over the internet, especially on Google.

Q: I found a DIY green screen, and i was wondering if it was mandatory to have green screen software, or if there was something alreasy on my computer i could use, if not… do you know where i buy software cheap? or possibly download for free?? thank you! i greatly appreciate any answer.

A: Yes, you will either need a plugin in photoshop or another photo editor, or a stand alone piece of software.  Try Green Screen Wizard, there is a free trial that is fully functional (its just stamped with “DEMO”).

I want to get a green screen and i found a few packages online that include a green screen software, the green screen with the stand, and stuff like that, but no projector. Do you necessarily need a projector to use a green screen, or can you just film somebody in front of one, then use the software on the computer to make it work without a projector?

Help is much appreciated.

-x-

No, you do not need a projector.

I agree with the responder above me, aside from a good backdrop, you do need a good lighting and a good camera.

I suggest you first practice with ready-made green screen videos. There are a lot of green screen videos which you can download for free. I download free clips from www.filmvaultstudios.com to practice my editing skills. As I learned more, I also get the idea on how to set up good lighting and backdrop by observing the alpha channel clips that I download.

Good luck!

I am looking for a green screen. Can I use a white sheet? And how do you light it evenly????. But i am also looking for green screen editing software.
I have a blue sheet but it is light blue can I use that?

See Tubetape.com for chromakey material and software.

If you have a decent editing app or compositor, they can key colors out very well. You can also buy an app just for that at the link above.

You can use any color as long as nothing else in your scene is even remotely close to it. Hot green and blue are used for that reason. Don’t use a white sheet. When you key the color, it will affect any white including reflected white. Stick to green or blue.

Using a digital photography green screen is easy. The screens are used in both still photography and videos although it’s more common in video photography.

First off, you need an actual green screen. Despite the name, this can be either green or blue in color. The choice of color will largely be dictated by what you are photographing as you want to make it easy for your software to isolate the intended image with you.

Purpose made green screens are readily available from around $20. You can look for them in places like eBay, Amazon or your local photo store. Alternatively, you can make your own from fabric or even by painting a roll of paper. So long as the color is consistent, you’ll be fine.

Next up you need to make sure that you have good lighting for your digital photo. This is especially useful when you come to edit your pictures as extra shadows can confuse any automatic software options that you choose.

Although you can buy expensive lights, you’ll probably find that you can get very good results with just a couple of fluorescent tubes. Place them both upright, in front of your subject and to either side. This way any shadows should be canceled out.

Then take your photographs.

Once you’re happy with these, the time has come to edit them and put in a new background. So your “talking head” shot now shows you in a news studio, in front of a street scene, or just about anywhere else you choose.

Much will now depend on your photo editing software.

At its most basic, you will need to trace round the outline of your chosen image. Programs like Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop have tools that will help you to do this. But it may still take a while to tweak the places where the automatic software recognition program isn’t as accurate as you may like. This is where the contrast between the green screen and your subject matter comes in handy as it gives your chosen software a much better chance of doing a good job with as little of your help as possible.

Once you’ve got your image selected, you then need to use another option to digitally “lift” the image and then drop it onto your chosen background. Again, this will vary with your software package but providing you can get the software to just copy the selected area, you’ll be fine.

It may pay you to practice doing this with a simple shape such as a rectangle or a circle so that you don’t waste lots of time tracing round a complicated image only to find you press the wrong key at the wrong time. It’s at times like these when you’re grateful for Edit Undo options but personally I wouldn’t rely on them one hundred percent.

It’s then a relatively easy matter of dropping your carefully cut out selection on to the new picture. So you can then pretend to be talking to people from in front of the pyramids of Egypt or anywhere else you prefer.

Get more tips and tricks on [http://digitalphotographyrevealed.com/digital/choosing-a-digital-photography-green-screen/]digital photography green screens as well as a host of other [http://digitalphotographyrevealed.com/]digital photography goodies.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Trevor_Stonham http://EzineArticles.com/?Digital-Photography-Green-Screen-Techniques&id=959832

Here is a quick response to a question a reader asked the other day about how to green screen. He wondered how far the on-camera person should be from the green background. He said he was very frustrated because he had searched for an answer and everyone said something different. There was no consensus so he was confused. I explained that the reason no one seemed to agree is because the proper distance between the background and the on-camera talent is entirely dependent on the particular situation under which you are videotaping.

When you’re making a video using green screen technique, how far away from the green background should your on-camera person be? A reader asked this the other day and said he was very frustrated because he had searched for an answer and everyone said something different. There was no consensus so he was confused.

I explained that the reason no one seemed to agree is because the proper distance between the background and the on-camera talent is entirely dependent on the particular situation under which you are videotaping.

On a technical level, the distance is totally irrelevant. What matters is that the green background is an even color. No variations. Shadows are one of the chief problems that cause variations in color. The darker color of the shadow will cause the green screen effect to be uneven.

If the on-camera person is standing very close to the background, chances are her shadow will fall on the background. But if the on-camera person were twenty feet from the background, the same shadow would fall harmlessly on the floor, which is cropped out of the picture.

Problem is, most people do not have the luxury of that much room.

In an ideal situation, most professional videographers would place the on-camera talent at least five or ten feet from the background. This gives the talent a little breathing room and helps ensure an even background.

However, when I took a tour of ABC news studios, I saw them videotape a news update and the anchor person was smashed up against the wall. They shot the news update from her office, which was tiny. It looked great on the air. I could barely tell it was a green screen. It looked real!

The lighting in her office was extremely diffused so there were no shadows. The green behind her was homogenous in color which gave a beautiful green screen effect.

So if you have some room to play with, go for a distance of about ten feet. If you don’t have the room, do not worry about it. Just make sure your lighting is diffused so the shadows will be minimal or non existent.

If you have a video production question you’d like answered, drop me a line a videoproductiontips@gmail.com I’d love to hear from you!

Lorraine Grula has been a well-respected award winning video professional for over twenty-five years. (Yeah, that makes her kind of old.) Lorraine has done virtually every kind of video production imaginable and now shares her expertise on the web. Her blog, http://www.VideoProductionTips.com is full of free information and video