Getting Great Greenscreen Keys Using Fusion’s Delta Keyer

Fusion’s Delta Keyer: An incredibly powerful but misunderstood tool

When I first started using the Delta Keyer in Fusion – I never seemed to get the results I was expecting. Keys took a lot of tweaking, and it always seemed harder than it should be.

This got me thinking of one of my overall philosophies when it comes to just about any type of workflow:

“If you are working really hard – there is probably a better way to approach the problem”.

Joey D’Anna

Understanding the delta in ‘Delta Keyer’

Turns out – I was using the Delta Keyer completely wrong!

‘Delta’ refers to the difference between two things, and differences are exactly what this powerful keyer exploits to make great keys.

Instead of removing a single color from the background, the Delta Keyer subtracts a clean version of the greenscreen, including its imperfections and nonuniformities. This eliminates many of the normal pain points of greenscreen keying – but requires you to have a clean plate – or a shot of the greenscreen with nothing in the foreground.

Thankfully, if you don’t have an actual photographed clean plate available – Fusion has a great way of generating one using the clean plate node. In this Insight, I’ll walk you through building a clean plate

Key takeaways from this Insight

By the end of this Insight, you should understand the following:

• How the Delta Keyer is different than normal keyers, and why a single color selection isn’t ideal
• Using the Clean Plate node to make a good clean plate for the Delta Keyer to work from
• Adjusting and tuning the resulting key and adding garbage mattes
• Finishing the comp on the color page

Questions or Comments? Leave a comment!

Is this Insight useful to you? Let us know! Mixing Light is all about community discussions, and we’re curious if you found this helpful, if you have something to add, or if you have more questions we can address?

– Joey