---
title: 'Your OBS green screen is all wrong, and the fix is so simple!'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=UWhA0rqQOeg'
video_id: 'UWhA0rqQOeg'
date: 2026-06-14
duration_sec: 936
---

# Your OBS green screen is all wrong, and the fix is so simple!

> Source: [Your OBS green screen is all wrong, and the fix is so simple!](https://youtube.com/watch?v=UWhA0rqQOeg)

## Summary

This tutorial explains how to achieve a high-quality chroma key in OBS using a green screen, even with a typical streamer lighting setup and a decent webcam. The creator shares tips on selecting the right green screen, lighting, and camera, and demonstrates how to adjust OBS chroma key settings for optimal results. A cheat code using the Advanced Masks plugin is also revealed.

### Key Points

- **Choosing a Green Screen** [01:06] — A pull-down or pop-up green screen is recommended over a simple green cloth because it avoids wrinkles and makes setup/teardown easier, leading to better chroma key results.
- **Lighting Setup** [02:42] — A typical streamer lighting setup with a bright key light on one side and a dimmer fill light on the other is sufficient. Shadows are acceptable if they are diffuse, as software can compensate.
- **Camera Requirements** [04:16] — Any decent webcam works, but cheap low-quality cameras may struggle due to lower color quality and more noise. The method works with a wide range of cameras from C920 to mirrorless.
- **OBS Chroma Key Settings** [05:15] — The three key sliders are Similarity (range of green to key out), Smoothness (softens edges), and Spill Reduction (removes green cast). The goal is to keep Similarity as low as possible for better edge control.
- **Selecting the Key Color** [08:30] — Pick a mid-tone green from the screen rather than the brightest or darkest. This allows the Similarity slider to expand evenly, resulting in a cleaner key with lower Similarity values.
- **Advanced Masks Plugin Cheat Code** [11:45] — The Advanced Masks plugin (version 1.5.0) offers a chroma key with dual color selection (lightest and darkest green), making it easier to pick the correct range. It also includes a show mat option and a feather mask for fine-tuning edges.

### Conclusion

With reasonable lighting, a flat green screen, and understanding of OBS chroma key settings, you can achieve professional-looking real-time special effects for your stream. The Advanced Masks plugin simplifies the process further.

## Transcript

viewers of my stream know that I love
creating fun special effects to spice
things up a bit. Now, one of the
fundamental building blocks of those
effects is a high quality chroma key
using a green screen. And I know that
setting up a green screen and a chroma
key can seem a little bit daunting. Not
only do you need the screen, but do you
need studio quality lighting and a
really good camera? And what's up with
all the dials that you have to adjust in
OBS? Well, I'm here to tell you it's
actually not that complicated. With a
typical streamer lighting setup, a
decent webcam, and a green screen, you
too can have an amazing chroma key on
which to build your effects. I'm Finite
Singularity, and today I'm going to show
you how to set up a green screen that'll
leave your viewers scratching their
heads. But stick around to the end
because I'm going to share with you a
cheat code that'll make it even easier.
[Music]
Now, let's start by talking about the
screen itself. You could see my green
screen behind me, which is a pull down
green screen mounted to my ceiling. Now,
as streamers, we typically like to do
things as inexpensively as possible. And
a lot of tutorials will claim a good way
to cut corners is on the green screen
itself. They'll say things like, "Just
get yourself some green cloth and throw
it up on the wall behind you." And while
this can work, it causes two big
problems. The first is setup and tear
down. You have to figure out a way to
mount it to the wall. And when you mount
it, you have to figure out how to iron
out all the wrinkles that will appear
every single time you put it up.
Speaking of those wrinkles, that's the
second problem. I've never had much luck
ironing out all those wrinkles. And a
smooth green screen like this one is
much easier to chroma key, and you'll
get significantly better results. So, if
you're serious about wanting to make
these sorts of effects on your stream, I
would recommend investing a little bit
more in a quality green screen. Uh,
something like a pull down green screen
or maybe one of those Elgato pop-up
green screens. They don't wrinkle. They
have a nice quality green color, and
they set up and they tear down quite
easily. And you'll find that you
actually use them.
[Music]
A flat green screen is fantastic, but if
you don't have any lights, you're going
to have a bad day trying to key it out.
Now, if you've spent any time watching
tutorials on green screens on YouTube,
super boring, I know. You'll hear
lighting, lighting, lighting. And then
you'll see studio setups with expensive
lights for the green screen and separate
systems dedicated to the subject. and
you'll see roomsized green screens that
are far away. And I don't know about
you, but I don't have the room nor the
money in my streaming space for that. My
screen placement, it breaks all the
rules. It's way too close to me. I don't
have dedicated lights, and I don't know
if you noticed, but there's shadows.
However, if we can keep those shadows
diffuse and we can reasonably limit
them, we can easily make up for that in
software. So, how do I get lighting like
this? Well, frankly, by following every
lighting suggestion for streamers on the
internet. To my left and up high, I have
a bright LCD panel key light. And to my
right, I have a dimmer LCD panel fill
light. And that's it. I'll leave some
links in the description for streaming
lighting setup. And so if you can set up
like a typical stream lighting setup
like this and you have a flat green
screen, you'll get a great chroma key.
The last piece of hardware we need to
consider is the camera. Now, any decent
webcam will work, although you might
start to struggle with one of those
cheap $5 webcams that you got for free
at some conference. As lower-end
cameras, they tend to have lower color
quality, less chroma information, and a
lot more noise, which makes keying much
more difficult. I've had good luck on a
wide range of webcams and cameras,
including the classic C920,
the Elgato Face Cam, my iPhone. I've
also used this on like high-end
mirrorless cameras. So, it's really
applicable to a wide range of cameras.
And as long as you're not trying to use
an actual potato, this method should
work well. And with that, let's dive
into OBS and start the fun part,
removing our background.
[Music]
Here we are in OBS. I've set up a simple
scene of just my camera as well as a
background image that we want to have
show through our key. Go ahead and click
on the camera and then on filters to
bring up the filters menu for that
source. This is where we'll apply our
chroma key. Uh click the plus button and
select chroma key. Uh once you click
okay, you should see something similar
to this. uh you'll have a chroma key
using the default values and it likely
won't look very good. This is because
the green of your green screen likely
does not match the default green
provided by the filter. Uh to fix this,
we'll go ahead and select a custom color
for our key color type. Uh before we
actually select a color though, I want
to talk briefly about these three
sliders. Uh these are the three
important sliders for setting up our key
and what we're going to go over today.
Uh the first is similarity. Similarity
is the range of green that you'll be
able to key out. Higher values mean
you're going to key out more light and
more dark, a larger range. Smaller
values mean you're going to focus in on
very specific colors of green. If you
had an absolutely perfect chroma key,
you could set this value way, way down.
But again, as streamers, we don't have
the space. So, we cast shadows. We don't
have professional lighting. We don't
have dedicated lighting for our green
screens. And so, we are going to have
variance in that color. And so, we are
going to need to have a similarity value
that isn't one or two. That leads us to
our smoothness value. One of the side
effects of a chroma key is the edges of
your subject can look rough or unnatural
or noisy. Uh the smoothness slider,
well, it smooths those out and allows
the subject to blend a little bit more
nicely into the background and look more
natural. Now, smoothness and similarity
are linked. Uh the general rule of thumb
is the lower you can get your similarity
value, the more range you have to play
with your smoothness value. So if you
can get that similarity value down low,
it means you've got more ability to make
your key look natural. Finally, we have
key color spill reduction. One other
thing that green screens do is they put
a green cast on the subject. You'll
notice this a lot of times in the
shoulders, in the hair. You'll see like
that green around someone when it's a
pretty bad chroma key. Uh, spill
reduction helps to fix this. It'll
desaturate those greens around the
edges. However, if you set it too high,
it's going to desaturate your skin tones
and it's not going to look real good.
So, I found for spill reduction, I keep
it under 100. Usually, I set it around
50. Uh, for my smoothness, I'm usually
shooting for something around 15 to 25.
And similarity, I find getting a key
with a similarity under 80 can give a
very nice key. Our first step now is
we're going to select our key color. So,
start by dialing these all down to one
so that you can see your original
background here. And go ahead and click
select color. Move your color picker
here off to the side a little bit
because you need to be able to see. And
click pick screen color. And this is
somewhere where a lot of people mess up.
Uh when they go to pick a color, you're
going to just click on any green in your
background. Here you can see the value
changing. A lot of people zero in on
like this really nice chroma green here,
thinking, "Okay, I'm going to get that
great chroma green, and that's what
we're going to filter out." Other people
might pick stuff like really close to
their subject to try to get rid of that
that haze around their subject. Other
people might choose the darkest color.
In fact, the best green to pick is, as
the kids say, the mid green. You're
looking for that green that's smack dab
in the middle. So that when we expand
that range, we're expanding from the
middle to the outside versus having to
expand from one side, you know, out. you
you want to keep that value as low as
possible. Uh so we're going to try to
find sort of the middle shadow color
here. I'm going to pick something about
here. So I'm going to click there and
then in my color picker here, click
okay. You can kind of see some of the
stuff that's getting filtered out cuz my
similarity is low. Now the way we know
we picked a good color, we'll start to
increase similarity. And the goal is to
have the lightest part, which is above
my head here, disappear at the same time
as the darkest part, which is down here.
So clearly I picked a color that is
quite a bit too light. You can see my
similarities around 70. Uh so we're
going to rinse and repeat here. I'm
going to click select color. Uh we'll
move this off to the side again. Pick
screen color. And I'll pick a little bit
darker green here. And we'll click okay.
And again we'll try that. And now you
see it's not perfect, but we're a lot
closer. And our similarity value is down
around 50 52. We we'll set it to about
55 here. Gives us a little bit extra
room to work with. And if I move this
out of the way, you can see we have a
pretty good key without even doing any
smoothness here. That picking that
middle color makes a huge huge
difference. I'm going to go ahead with
my smoothness value. I'm going to bump
that up to around I don't know 14 or so.
And uh you know, you can see that it
smooths out the edges just a little bit.
If you do it too much, you'll find that
you'll start to disappear. You'll start
to turn into a ghost. Uh so yeah,
something around 14 seems to work pretty
well there. And even though I don't have
much green cast on me right now, I
always set my spill reduction to 50. I
find some shirts will show that cast a
lot more. If I set it to 50, it gives me
enough room to play with uh so that I
don't have to adjust my key every time I
change clothes and fire up the stream on
the next day. Uh so with these settings,
oh, we set ourselves I guess I hit the
opacity here somehow. Uh with these
settings, we have got a pretty good
looking key here. Now, I mentioned at
the beginning of this video that I was
going to share with you a little cheat
code. And here is what that cheat code
is. We're going to go here and we're
going to delete our chroma key. Uh in
the latest version of my advanced masks
plugin, version 1.5.0,
I've added a chroma key. Uh we can find
it by looking through alpha masks and
the mask type will be chroma key. This
algorithm is the same algorithm that the
OBS team uses, but it's got a couple
nice extras. Uh, the first of these,
let's dial these all down. So, it's like
we're starting from scratch again. Uh,
the first of these is a double color
select for our key color type. And what
this lets us do, rather than having to
try to pick out that middle green, we
can pick the lightest green and the
darkest green, which are much easier to
see and identify. So, let's go ahead
here. Move this. Oh, no. We'll use this
window. Uh, we're going to go ahead and
click select color and pick screen
color. And the lightest color is going
to be something right around here. So,
we'll select that green and click okay.
Uh, we'll then click select color for
the dark one and pick screen color. And
I'm going to go down here. This is by
far the darkest green. Click okay. And
now we can bring that similarity. And
you see they disappeared at the same
time at an even lower value of 44 here.
So it was able to pick that a little bit
better than I could by eye. Our
smoothness value would probably be the
same as would our spill reduction. And
here we have another really good looking
key uh picked out much easier because
you're able to pick those two colors.
The advanced mask chroma key also comes
with a show mat option. Uh this makes it
easy to identify. You can see I've got
some some little noise going on in my
shoulder here which tells me that my
smoothness might be a little high. So
maybe we'll bring that down to eight.
And you can really start to finetune. I
mean, I might have a good enough key
here that I can go without any. You can
really start to finetune your key with a
mat. It's much easier to see in this
black and white format. Uh, the other
thing that we can do with advanced mask
to make your key even better, I've added
a feather mask option. So, you'd want to
add another advanced mask filter right
after your chroma key filter. And you'll
go down and you'll your alpha mask will
be a feather mask. And now a feather
mask is going to blur the edges of the
mask. So if I crank it way up here, I
look like a ghost or something. But if I
set my feather to like two or three
pixels, it's just going to add that
little bit of extra smoothing to the
edges of the subject. And that adds just
a little bit more realism to your chroma
key.
For those of you who made it this far,
congratulations.
I hope I provided you with some new
knowledge that'll help make your green
screen look incredible. By using
reasonable lighting, a flat green
screen, and understanding the chroma key
settings in OBS, you have one of the
fundamental building blocks to create
amazing real-time special effects for
your stream. If you found this useful,
please hit the subscribe button as I'll
be adding plenty more tutorials in the
future including
how to drop a TV on your head.
Also, please stop by my live stream
where we build these effects as well as
the software that's used to drive them.
And I'll see you in the next one.
[Music]