How to Use Ultra Key in Premiere Pro to Remove Green Screen

In this video we will be learning how to remove the green screen in our videos by using the Ultra Key function in Adobe Premiere Pro. This video will give you a real life and practical demonstration of using Ultra Key, since the green screen shown in the video is not evenly lit, thereby forcing us to learn Ultra key in a more comprehensive way. Here’s the video:

This video is from our Budget YouTube Studio Set-up course, which is scheduled to release in May 2024. Once it is released, you will be able to find it on the following page:

https://www.creativepadmedia.com/online-courses/

Video Summary

This Adobe Premiere Pro tutorial from Creative Pad Media explains how to use the Ultra Key effect to remove a green screen (chroma keying).

Steps for Removing a Green Screen:

• Applying the Effect: Go to the Effects panel, search for “Ultra Key,” and drag the effect onto your video clip on the timeline [00:25].
• Using the Eye Dropper: In the Effect Controls window, select the eye dropper tool and click on a green area in the background [01:41].
  • Pro Tip: Try clicking in different areas of the green screen to see which gives you the “cleanest” initial removal (maximum blackness in the mask) [03:59]. It is often best to focus on getting the area around the subject’s head as clean as possible [04:15].
• Increasing Potency:
  • Setting: Change the setting from “Default” to “Aggressive” to tell Premiere to be more thorough in removing similar shades of green [06:32].
  • Pedestal: Under the “Matte Generation” drop-down, increasing the Pedestal value (sometimes all the way to 100) helps remove stubborn green artifacts without eating into the subject [07:03].
• Fine-Tuning the Mask:
  • You can further adjust Shadows and Highlights under Matte Generation to eliminate bright spots or shadows on the green screen [09:10].
  • Be careful with the Shadow slider, as pushing it too far can start to “eat away” at the edges of the subject, such as their hair [09:55].
• Integration Tip: Sometimes adjusting your Lumetri Color settings (like exposure or highlights) can also help the Ultra Key tool better distinguish the green screen from the subject [11:17].