Primatte Keyer Pro 4 for Final Cut Pro: Getting Started

Primatte Keyer 4Pro 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 Final Cut Pro 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 Final Cut Pro. Make sure that your foreground element is highlighted in the timeline. Primatte Keyer is accessed by selecting Primatte Keyer 4.0 from the Primatte Keyer sub-menu, located under Video Filters\Primatte Keyer in the Effects browser. Primatte is applied to the foreground layer, and the interface appears in the Effect Controls palette.

Interface

The Primatte Keyer interface is contained in the Filters tab under Video Filters.

All Primatte keying functions can be accessed through this interface but the results of the keying functions will be seen in the FCP Canvas window...

This is due to interface issues between the Primatte interface and the FCP plug-in access. There are four main components to the Primatte interface:

• Deartifacting

• Keying

• Alpha Controls

• Composite Controls

The Primatte Interface

Most of the tools in Primatte Keyer require you to sample areas of the foreground element and the color key area in the Final Cut Pro Filters window using the arrow cursor. You can only sample in the Filters window in the Viewer area and NOT in the Canvas.

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 Filters window 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 Pixel or a Rectangle sampling. These can be selected in the area just above the foreground image in the Filters window.

Pixel Sampling

For Pixel Sampling, position the cursor in an area of the backing screen and simply click once to sample a single point, or click and drag to sample multiple points. As you drag, small dots will appear along the path of the mouse movement. Each one of these small dots represents a sampled pixel. Once you release the mouse button, Primatte will generate a key based on the sampled pixels.

Only pixels directly under one of the dots in the trail are sampled. When trying to select a specific pixel with the point sample, move the mouse more slowly to create a denser sample area (as shown in the example above).

Rectangle Sampling

Rectangle Sampling g works in exactly the same manner as the point sample, only you are sampling all of the pixels within a rectangular area rather than underneath the dot trail.

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

There is another method of sampling called Median Sampling that is explained in more detail further on in this manual. It works in conjunction with the Pixel Sampling and takes a 3x3 region around each point sampled and then a median filter is applied to get the sampled pixel color information.

The controls for these features are explained in the Keying section of this manual.