A keying master's help I need

Hi everyone,

I am in some serious keying trouble. The subject had a really bad hair day, I guess.

I tried the inbuilt keyer and also Phyx keyer but my results were unsatisfying. I have to admit that I am not very experienced at keying, so far I get along quite well but now I reach my limits.

Is there a trick on how to work with this hair? Several layers of keys or so? I am super thankful for any advice!

Enjoy your weekend!
Sebastian

Here's a link to a better quality image in my dropbox:
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2207321/Keying%20nightmare.jpg

I replied before, wonder what happened to that reply? I'm going to look at your image later this evening. In the mean time, you are at the point where you need to learn the advanced tools. Below is a link to get you started with the advanced controls. But you'll probably have more questions. I suggest you dive in to them and start experimenting. FYI, with frizzy hair, I have my models put it up or pull it back or flat-iron it.
help.apple.com/finalcutpro/mac/10.2/#/ver40b003bc

Ben, I had this posted in the wrong section before and re-posted, that's why your reply is not here. You are right, she should have her hair better organized. Too bad it's the way it is And it's not only the fuzzy hair, it's also the shallow depth of field, I'd say.

I think I once heard people talk about keying the different color channels individually but don't quite remember. Do you know anything about that? Thanks for your advice!

You probably don't want to hear this, but for tricky keys like this, you would get better results with something like Primatte Keyer. It's expensive, unfortunately.

www.redgiant.com/products/primatte-keyer/

The built-in FCPX keyer is good, but it doesn't approach the quality of the best keyers out there (at least I have never gotten it to be as good). One other note is that for frizz like this, often you can tweak the key to get rid of a lot of those extra frizzy strands.

Just real quickly, there's also something cheaper called Hawaiki Keyer that I've also gotten decent results from at times.

Here is something I did with hardly any tweaking in Primatte, just an additional Clean GS background. No lightwrap too, which often doesn't work well with fine hair details. One other tricky thing you'll note is that here hair is a little soft or out of focus.

You could probably tweak it to get rid of additional hair details to make it less frizzy (although you would have to see if it looks natural in motion).

Yes, there are better keys out there, but FCPX does have the best "built-in" keyed. I wish we could refine the spill suppression rather than be forced to have it desaturate. At least it doesn't purple tint it like FCP7's keyed did. Depending on how important this is, and how far you want to go, look into the lower priced keys like PHYX and Hawaii.

Wow, I am impressed. Especially by the primatte results I must say. I actually tried Phyx but was still unhappy with it.

Try Hawaiki. It's good - I easily get better results than the built-in FCPX keyer...and often better results than Primatte. It's a great Keyer.

This is what you get with your source image with Hawaiki without adjusting a single parameter. It's a pretty damn good start.

Thanks, will check it out!

Does it make sense to anyone to sort of key channels individually or something like that?

Your screen is pretty evenly lit and should generally allow for good keying. The frizzy hair really is what makes this a problematic key. I would suggest the same alternatives mentioned already for Keyers and then maybe apply a couple additional instances to tweak the hair edges where they seem to be the thinnest. Depending on your background you might make this task easier or harder. Can you show what the image will be, or is it live video?

Yeah, for an image with frizzy hair like this, Hawaiki for sure.

I'm just so goddamned lazy that when I HAVE to do the shooting myself, or direct it, I get really pissy and make sure everything is done as to save me as much time in post as possible. Just comes with being a grumpy old man.

Okay guys, tried Hawaiki and am really happy with it. For me it beats the Phyx-Keyer by far (or at least is much easier to use). Thanks for your input!

Just wanted to add that that's been my experience too. Hawaiki Keyer has been a great tool for me. I tried Phyx, Primatte, etc. but since version 2 Hawaiki Keyer has been the most intuitive to use and produced excellent results. Support has been great.