The Linear Color Key is a very simple effect with only a few options and the only thing you have to do is use the color picker for the Key Color property and click on the solid black background of your stock footage clip.ĭepending on the type of stock footage you can tweak the effect using the Matching Tolerance and Matching Softness properties. One of the effects I use a lot in After Effects is the inbuilt ‘Linear Color Key’ effect.Īpply this effect to your stock footage element. Colour keying is the technique of cutting out pieces of your video layer based on a particular colour, called a ‘key’. Remove Black Background using a Color KeyĪfter Effects contains numerous effects for colour keying.
In those cases you need to remove the black background using a colour key effect. Because these elements are themselves rather dark, the Screen or Add blend modes will cause the stock footage elements themselves to become very faint and semi-transparent. While this works great for explosions or fire elements, it does not really work for blood or dirt or debris. This will alter how the pixels of the layer are combined with the layers below and since both of these modes (in one form or another) incorporate the luminance (brightness) of the pixels to calculate the opacity, the black background will disappear entirely. If you are working with explosions or fire, a very simple way to remove the solid black background is to change the Blend Mode to ‘Screen’ or ‘Add’. Fortunately, removing the solid black background from your explosion or blood elements is really easy so let’s look at how you can do that! Remove Black Background using Blend ModesĮvery layer in your composition in Adobe After Effects has a Blend Mode that determines how this layer is composited onto the layers below it.īy default, the Blend Mode is set to ‘Normal’. However, since Action Essentials 2 is not free, you may simply prefer to use stock footage you can find on other sites online. Here is an explosion from Action Essentials imported into the same composition in Adobe After Effects: This means, that the solid black (or green or blue) background has already been removed and the video has a proper alpha channel that defines its transparency.
Professional stock footage elements, such as the amazing Action Essentials 2 stock footage pack by Video Copilot, are usually pre-keyed. When you drag the clip into your composition in After Effects, it will probably look like this:
Most stock footage you can download for free from the internet does not have a proper alpha channel set up.
Upon doing this, the footage is replaced with a new single clip in your timeline.Downloaded some free explosion or blood stock footage from detonationfilms or footagecrate and don’t know how to get rid of the solid black background of the clip? This tutorial will show you how! What are Alpha Channels and Why Do I Care? Right-click on this selection, and from the menu, select Replace With After Effects Composition. This may be a set of footage that needs an overlay, or clips that need chroma keying with the Keylight plugin. Once you've done this, navigate to the clip (or selection of multiple clips) in your Premiere timeline that you wish to designate as an After Effects composition for further work. Dynamic Link automatically creates After Effects projects if none are open, but this can quickly become messy and confusing.
To get started, first ensure that you have both After Effects and Premiere Pro open, with your projects named, saved, and ready to link. It's relatively easy to get your two Adobe projects linked with Dynamic Link, a feature that allows both programs to share their sequences collaboratively. In this article, we'll examine the process for creating an After Effects linked composition within Premiere Pro, and how to switch between the two. This linked composition can be edited and adjusted within After Effects, and then get "dynamically" updated within your Premiere timeline. Thanks to the Dynamic Link function, you can connect timelines and projects, swapping quickly between two workflows. Being able to fluidly switch between Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro workflows can drastically speed up your editing process, particularly when working with tight deadlines.