Primatte Keyer Pro 4 for Avid AVX2: Getting Started

Primatte Keyer 4 from Red Giant Software has a host of professional options for creating mattes from any object shot against a color background. In this section we will cover the Primatte Keyer for After Effects interface, explaining the function of each button and menu item.

While Primatte Keyer is a chroma keyer, and thus can create a matte from any color background, for the purposes of this documentation the element to be keyed will be referred to as the “bluescreen” element.

Applying Primatte

Primatte Keyer is accessed like all filters from within Effects bin. Primatte Keyer is accessed by selecting Primatte Keyer Pro from the Primatte sub-menu, located under the Effect bin.

Primatte is applied to the foreground layer, and the interface appears in the Effect Controls palette.

Interface

The Primatte Keyer Pro interface is shown in the effect editor palette once applied to a clip in the timeline.

All Primatte keying functions can be accessed through this interface. There are ten different groups of controls in the Primatte Keyer Pro interface:

• Deartifacting

• Basic Sampling and View

• Matte Controls

• Grain Controls

• Crop Controls

• Expert Color Controls

• Alpha Cleaner

• Spill Killer

• Color Matcher

• Light Wrap

Note: Since the Primatte Keyer Pro interface is based on the AVX2 plug-in standard, most of the values in the interface are keyframeable using the Avid keyframing interface.

The Effect Controls Interface

Most of the tools in Primatte Keyer require you to sample areas of the foreground element and the color key area in the Avid Composer window. You will control the sampling mode and the view of the output using controls in the Basic Controls category.

Sampling Pixels

At this point it is important to provide a brief overview of how to sample pixels, because understanding the sampling process directly relates to Primatte features that will be explained and described in subsequent sections below.

What is sampling? The Primatte keying process requires you to designate areas of your bluescreen element as either foreground (fully opaque) or background (fully transparent). Primatte Keyer will then generate a matte (also commonly referred to as an alpha channel) based upon these selections. This process is known as sampling.

Sampling involves selecting an area of the composite with the mouse pointer. You can either click once to select a single pixel, or click and drag the mouse to select multiple pixels in a single operation.

There are two ways to sample pixels, using either a Rectangle or Median sampling.

Rectangle Sampling

In Primatte Keyer you use the pointer to sample pixels using a rectangle. As you click and drag in the Composer window, you are selecting a group of pixels that change the key output depending on the tool mode chosen in the basic controls menu.

Click and drag in the composite window to select a rectangular range of pixels. When you release the mouse button Primatte will generate a key based upon the sampled pixels.

Median Sampling

The Median Sampling Option takes 3x3 region around the point the user clicked and then applies a median filter. This can potentially reduce any noisy pixels.