Greenscreen (aka chroma key) effect with a webcam

skypevideo editingvisual-effectswebcam

This is not the blue screen of death I am speaking of, but the process called bluescreening (also known as green screen, or Chroma Key).

It removes a particular colored background from an image so that it can be superimposed on some other video/still picture. If you have ever seen the weatherman stand in front of the map, then you have seen someone doing a blue screen technique.

greenscreen or chroma key effect

I would like to be able to

  1. capture video from my webcam
  2. send that video to a bluescreen / greenscreen / chroma key program
  3. have that program replace the color in the background with a background of my own choosing
  4. Once the image is superimposed, pipe it into Skype for video conferencing.

Anyone have a good way to do this?

Best Answer

I can get a greenscreen effect with Adobe Visual Communicator 3 most reliably -- it has pro level chroma keying that actually works, unlike the other toy software out there. I tried 3 or 4, none of them even really worked.

chroma keyed stonehenge in adobe visual communicator

However, I cannot figure out any way to pipe this excellent greenscreen in real time through Skype.

The ManyCam suggested by tgbarnett does work through Skype (and is free!), but it's primitive. I can barely get the chroma keying to work, even with a real green screen, and there are no settings at all to tweak to make it better. Darn!

manycam chroma keying

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