If any of you have ever had to do a chroma key and it wasn’t done properly, you found that it was pretty frustrating to key out your subject because of poor lighting. Then your lazy side tells you, it’ll take to long to set up your lights again and photograph your subject and sometimes you do it, then sometimes you don’t. Well, for smaller scale projects and objects, Lifehacker writer, Adam Dachis provides a quick, simple and effective way of making an instant green screen.
(As I previously mentioned, this tutorial is for smaller subjects that need chroma keying)
The process is really very simple. Pick something you want to take a picture of and remove its background that’s smaller than your computer screen. (Those of you with large displays will obviously have an advantage here, but I use my 13″ laptop all the time and it works fine.) Then fill the entire screen with green, white, or some color that will contrast nicely against the subject of the photo. There are a lot of ways you can fill your entire screen with color, but the method will depend on your image viewer. If you’ve got Photoshop, you can simple make a new document, fill it with a color, enter full screen mode (just press F twice) and zoom in until the color fills the entire screen.
Now place the subject in front of the computer screen and take the photo. When you bring this photo into your image editor, you can quickly knock out the background by using the magic wand tool. Generally the magic wand isn’t very good at removing backgrounds, but since you have an even color behind your subject it can select the background very easily. All you have to do is use it to select the background and delete the selection. Now you have a background-free photo!
Just remember to adequately light the subject with a lamp and you should get a decent key.
Source: Lifehacker
- MC
dude, quick qtuieson, how do you erase the sides that the chroma screen doesnt cover, basically, i get a chroma key, but i can see the walls behind the screen.
Best thing to do is tighten up your frame at the point. If you left yourself enough room, you can
correct some elements in post.