Re: Good Chroma Key Possible Without Extra Plugins ?

That's looking better but still not there. Being under the gun on an edit, I forgot to mention anything about DV video and color smoothing filters. Are you in an NTSC DV timeline? DV is bad for keying because of low color resolution. If you are willing to change the compressor for your sequence at this point (which may force you to render the whole timeline) you could change to DV50 or ProRes 422. I'm not sure it will help the initial key, but it might help if you have to go to multiple key layers. You should also apply the Color Smoothing 411 filter to your shot. It should be the top filter in the stack. This helps the DV color compression problem a lot. So, at least start with Color Smoothing 411 before you try anything else.

The next filter should be Chroma Keyer.

To refine this key a bit more, try pulling out the bottom sliders on the color, sat, and luma--a little bit, one at a time. See if edge improves.

Then apply some Edge Thin. If it's jagged and crunchy on the edge, apply a little smoothing. Turn up the Enhancement, which dials the remaining green out or replaces it with magenta. A little bit will render the edge neutral. Too much will just give you a bright magenta edge instead of a green one.

Spill suppressor will color balance the subject away from green. In other words, it pulls the color toward red. That will clean up the ugly green cast that may be subtly visible on the face and jacket.

The part behind the glasses might be the toughest, although if you get the rest of it, that should come along pretty well. You might have to do something separate to get that area.

Maybe Mark and others can chime in on any of my ideas. For instance, I'm not sure whether you'd need color smoothing 411 or 422 if you change to a DV50 or ProRes compression (as those are 4:2:2 codecs). I'm interested to see how far this key can come via Cow Coaching.