Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional Studio Techniques

Chapter 6. Color Keying

Slow down, I’m in a hurry.

–Franz Mairinger (Austrian Equestrian)

Color keying was first devised in the 1950s as a clever means to combine live-action foreground footage and backgrounds that could come from virtually anywhere. As of 2007, the tools to do this are more powerful than ever, but the overall process still remains full of pitfalls—pitfalls that won’t likely be overcome until some other means evolves to define precise areas of transparency in foreground footage (and several contenders are in some form of development).

Notes

For those reading nonlinearly, this chapter extends logically from fundamental concepts ...