---
title: 'The ULTIMATE Green Screen Tutorial'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=SmNkOl9CkSA'
video_id: 'SmNkOl9CkSA'
date: 2026-06-21
duration_sec: 0
---

# The ULTIMATE Green Screen Tutorial

> Source: [The ULTIMATE Green Screen Tutorial](https://youtube.com/watch?v=SmNkOl9CkSA)

## Summary

This video provides a comprehensive green screen workflow using DaVinci Resolve, Midjourney, and Photoshop. The creator covers lighting setup, keying in Fusion, AI background generation, and compositing with light wrap for realistic results.

### Key Points

- **Lighting Setup** [0:55] — Main key light at 45° angle with SmallRig RC60B and softbox; tube light for green screen; fill light for face.
- **Keying with Delta Key** [1:49] — Use Delta Key in Fusion; sample green near subject; adjust Gain and Balance sliders carefully.
- **Refining the Key** [3:37] — Use Premat to remove green shades by drawing a box; use Map tab with Threshold slider to refine.
- **Masking and Cleanup** [5:09] — Add polygon with garbage mat to mask out unwanted areas; reduce haloing with Erode, Blur, and Fringe Gamma.
- **AI Background Generation** [7:17] — Export still frame with green background; use Midjourney to generate background; use Photoshop Generative Fill to remove subject.
- **Compositing in Color Page** [9:57] — Add adjustment clip; use Color page for vignette, exposure, saturation, and lighting color matching; add glow.
- **Light Wrap Technique** [13:16] — Use MatteControl with blurred background in Fusion to create light wrap around subject edges for realism.

## Transcript

So, do you want to know how you can get
green screens like this or this or even
this all whilst using AI and event
resolve? Well, today is the end of
gatekeeping because I'll be showcasing
my full green screen workflow that I use
for both my long form and short form
content. Not only will I be walking
through the platforms I use, but also
how I key out my green screens, the
lighting, and how I composite everything
inside the Vincent Resolve. And don't
worry if you don't use a Vincent Resolve
because everything I teach in this video
can still be applied in every single
editing software as well. Now, this is
going to be part of a long series on
YouTube. We'll be breaking down my
filming and editing process throughout
the coming months. So, if you don't want
to miss out, make sure you subscribe and
hit the notification bell because I'll
be revealing everything. And before I
forget, if you do have any suggestions
of any videos you'd like me to make,
make sure you write it down below
because I'll be reading everything and
maybe picking out any that I see fit for
the future of this channel. So, to break
down my lighting setup that I use in my
videos, firstly, I've got my main key
light shining from this direction at 45°
angle pointing downwards. And the light
I'm specifically using is the Small Rig
RC60B. Now, it's portable and I've just
got a massive soft box just to soften
the light. And secondly, just on my left
here, I've got a tube light from UA. And
just the main purpose of that is to
light the green screen behind me. And
thirdly, light here I have on my right
is the Small Rig portable
light box or panel. And again, it's just
for a fill light just to fill this side
of my face. And now we're going to be
moving on to keying out the green
screen. So the first thing I've done is
I've just color graded the footage by
converting it into Rex 709 and then just
doing my basic adjustments. Then I've
converted it into a compound clip just
so it the grade is baked in when we come
to actually key it out in the fusion
page. So head to the fusion page now.
And the key I'm going to be using is a
delta key. So you can go ahead and
search for that by pressing shift space.
You can add that. I'm also going to view
the delta key on the left viewer here.
And I'm going to turn off show color.
Now you're just going to see it appear
white here. But what we need to do is
using the eyedropper tool here on the
right is we just need to go very close
to the subject.
Just like that. And we just have a very
basic selection so far. Now we can see
on the left it's black and white. And
the easiest way to think of this is
black is everything we don't want and
white is everything that we do want. So
So the main two sliders that we're going
to be using are the gain and balance
sliders. So if we just increase the gain
a little bit, we can see that a lot of
the green screen starts to be keyed out,
but we also start to lose some of the
subject as you can see here.
So we need to move very carefully. And
then using the balance slider, we're
just doing the opposite thing. So by
decreasing it, we can see a lot of the
subject becomes more visible.
Also, we start to introduce back a lot
of this green screen. So, very minimal
movements.
[Music]
Just like that.
And now moving on to the premat. So,
we're going to be moving from left to
right. And one thing I forgot to
mention. So,
if I bring back the media in one clip.
So the better you light your green
screen, the easier it is going to be to
key out only because as you can see
here, there's a lot of creases in mine
and so there's a lot of disparity in
between the green shades just because of
the shadows. But that's fine. I'm still
going to show you how you can key out a
imperfect green screen. So if you move
back to the delta key, disable color
once again.
Now the way you can think of the premat
is we're just removing more of these
green shades by just drawing a box. Now
we can see when we do that we start to
remove some of the subject. So we can go
back.
Just select one more.
Now I'm not going to select too much cuz
as you can see now we've just gotten rid
of a lot of the subject. So this is good
enough. Now we can also improve the
selection by increasing the blur.
Just like that. We can see here that we
start to reintroduce some of the
subject.
And so let's move on to the map. And
this is probably one of the most
important tabs. And the main slider
we're going to be using is the threshold
slider. So what I normally do is just
increase the low point. You can see that
a lot of the green screen is keyed out
now. And then we just decrease the high
point
just like that.
Now this is a very good selection.
Obviously, we still have some
imperfections here, which we're going to
be able to mask out this one. But this
one, we can get rid of just by going
into the premat.
And we can select some of that. And for
small imperfections like this, then
that's fine. We can keep it only because
they won't be as visible when we come to
actually add in our realistic
background. I'm going to show you how to
do that later. But right now, let's
actually mask out everything that we
don't need. And the way I'm going to do
that is I'm just going to add a polygon.
And then by pressing on option, I'm just
going to
press some garbage mat. And what I'm
going to do is I'm just going to go
around everything that we need.
And now if we invert the selection, now
we've just selected everything that we
do need. And then we've just gotten rid
of everything here on the left and right
that were just distracting us from the
main subject. And if we zoom in closely,
we can see here that just got a bit of
haloing. And the way we can get rid of
that is by going into the map.
And then we can just erode slightly.
Can also introduce just a little bit of
blur. And in the fringe, we can just
reduce the fringe gamma as well. And now
we can see we got rid of that white
haloing that was around the subject. Now
we can go around the edges just to have
a look.
Just like that.
And there we go. Now I've just gotten
rid of the haloing all around. Now, I'm
just going to change the replace mode to
source because that's just a more
accurate representation of how we
actually graded the footage. And so, we
can move over to the fringe. And so,
what I'm going to do is I'm just going
to change the spill mode over to medium.
Depending on how much spill you actually
have on your subject, you can change
that to medium or even well done. But
I'm just going to keep it on medium for
now. And that should be everything for
the Delta Kia. So, what we can do now is
we can move back to the edit page. What
I'm also going to do is I'm going to
effects and I'm just going to search for
generators
and I'm going to drag a solid color
underneath our subject. I'm just going
to make that a very bright green and
you're going to see why when we actually
come to import it into Mid Journey so we
can actually get our background. Now
head over to file, export, current frame
as still.
And then we're just going to grab a
still of our video. We can name that
green
screen.
Still
just like that. So after you've exported
your still frame, now head to midjourney
and then hover over to the edit section.
And then we're going to press on edit
uploaded image. We're just going to
import our green screen still. Using the
smart select tool, we're just going to
select the subject.
And after you have a fairly decent
selection, you're just going to press on
erase background. Now, type in anything
that you want. For example,
a man sat in a cozy living room.
Warm
match lighting.
You can also play around with the
settings. So, you want to 16 by9. You
can play around with the aesthetics, but
we're just going to submit edit.
[Music]
Now, I've got some examples right here.
Let's see.
And you can just keep on generating
samples until you settle on one that you
actually like. So, let's try out a few
more.
[Music]
Okay. So, let's just pick out this one.
It's a decent example. There's a lot
going on and we can then come to
composite it later on in the Vinci
Resolve. So, go ahead and download
image.
Now, the third program we're going to be
using is Photoshop. So, go ahead and
open
the frame that we just downloaded from
Midjourney and we're going to be using
the generative fill tool. So go ahead
and select everything that you want to
get rid of because we just want the
plain background.
Just like that. Got some generative
fill. And then we can just type remove.
Now we're going to just get a few
examples. You can go ahead and pick out
which one you like. I'm just going to go
with the first one. And then I'm going
to go to file, export, and quick export
as PNG.
Now it's time for my favorite part,
which is the compositing. So, you want
to listen very closely because I'll be
giving away some tips and tricks that
you definitely don't want to miss out
on. So, to begin, we're going to grab
our plain background that we exported
out of Photoshop and we're just going to
line it below our subject. And then for
the first part of compositing, I'm just
going to add an adjustment clip
just like that. And then we're going to
move on to the color page. So, I'm just
going to add a few corrections and a few
effects that will really make the whole
scene pop. So, to begin, I'm just going
to add a vignette.
It's a bit too strong. So, using a lips
mask,
just going to soften it slightly.
Just like that. And the global blend, we
can just bring that down ever so
slightly as well.
Just like that. And if I press on option
P, it's going to get a parallel node.
We're going to do a similar thing,
but we're just going to make the subject
pop by just increasing the exposure
where our subject is. Just very
slightly.
Not too much.
And we can see that already
this makes a big difference. But we're
not done yet.
Another thing, we're also going to
increase the saturation just a little
bit.
Just like that.
And if you take a look at the viewer, we
have some warm light casting on our
subject from the left. And we have a
cool light shining on our subject from
the right. So we're just going to
accentuate that by adding
two ellipse masks once again.
Just like that.
And then we're going to move the offset
towards the orange. Just like that.
Another parallel node. Very similar
thing, but this time with the cool light
on the right hand side.
Just like that.
And already if we take a look,
it just makes the lighting pop much
more.
And if you have a look at before and
after,
we've just added that very, very slight
touch to it.
Now, finally, we're just going to add
some glow.
We don't want it to be too much. Just
going to lower the threshold. Just like
that.
And the spread. Can also lower the
gamma.
So that's
we can see
that this makes the bright areas pop as
well.
And now for the very important part
which is adding light wrap just around
our subject. If you don't know what that
is, light wrap is basically a
compositing technique where a bit of the
background's light softly wraps around
the edges of the subject and it just
makes it look less like a cutout. So
let's move on to the fusion page for
that.
So first thing I'm going to do is I'm
going to add a Mac control
and then I'm just going to connect Delta
Kia from earlier into the yellow input
of the Mac control and I'm just going to
view it on the left here. Now we want to
change the combine operation to subtract
and the combine to combine alpha. You're
going to see why later. And we also want
to add a blur node as well.
Then connect the blur node to the green
input of the mat control.
Now if we view we can see a very slight
outline. We can make that more prominent
by just increasing the blur size.
Just like that. And then we're going to
merge the Mac control on top of the
delta key but just changing the input to
the blue one. And then we're going to
grab our background from earlier. Once
again,
we're going to add a blur just to blur
it out all the way so you can view it
here.
And then we will add a transform.
Plug it into the green input.
And we're just going to
increase the size just so it fits the
whole frame. Just like that. And we can
see already we have some light wrap. If
I go before and after, you can see it
more clearly.
Just like that.
And if you want a stronger light wrap,
you can always up the blur. That's a bit
too much. So, we just want to keep it
very minimal. Just like that.
Now head back to the edit page. And as
you can see already, we have some light
wrapping around the chair and around the
laptop. This makes it 10 times more
realistic.