editing is this possible? (ultra key)

[WhiteOpus]

Hey guys,

So I am trying to use ultra key to get a specific effect. THIS VIDEO (password is: opus1) is something I made using a royalty-free ink drop video, combined with some of my own footage. Now what I want to do is take this clip and key out the white so I can layer the ink drop/video combination over the top of another clip. This is about as good as I can get (god-awful) but I'm at wit's end with this.

Any suggestions? I really would like to remove ALL of the white (or near-white), and to get rid of the horrible-looking blocks of white/grey.

 

[Will Vincent]

You really don't need a chroma keyer for that, just use the white to generate an alpha channel. If you want it to include gray-tones as well, then fiddle with the levels to turn those gray tones white, and use that as the key.

That'd be pretty trivial in after effects.

 

[mus]

would you like me to do this for you? I feel the need to help

 

[WhiteOpus]

I'd really like to do it myself, as I will be doing a lot more of this in the future. I'm learning about alpha channel and luma matte, hoping this is the right direction.

 

[WalterB]

Another way is using Extract in After Effects.
It let's you pick which part of the gray scale you want to be transparent.
So you can really pick white only with a little feather. (By creating a slope in the graph)

The fun withthis is you can use levels first to a copy to change the white and black point and mid grey, then use extract and use that layer as a matte for the original layer.