Digital Anarchy announced the availability of Primatte Chromakeyer 2.0, a chromakey compositing plug-in for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. Primatte allows users to use blue and greenscreen masking technology with Photoshop and digital still images to create complex layered effects.
"Chromakeying has become increasingly important in graphic design and still photography," said Jim Tierney, president of Digital Anarchy. "For instance, portrait photographers can now shoot a person on a blue or greenscreen and then put any digital background they want behind them. This eliminates the need for expensive physical backgrounds and significantly simplifies the process. Primatte provides Photoshop users with access to the same technology that is commonly used in the motion picture and broadcast industries."
Primatte 2.0's blue and greenscreen masking technology, known as chromakeying, precisely extracts a single color background from an image to create a transparency mask. With Primatte, users can take a foreground image of any resolution, shot against a single color backdrop, and replace that color with transparent pixels to create complex mask attributes such as transparency, hair, smoke and soft edges. Once the mask is created, Primatte has tools to remove problematic color cast, called blue spill, that remains on the masked object.
Primatte's key features include:
* Photoshop Layer Support: Masked objects are created on their own layer in Photoshop, making it simple to composite the result with any other layer or apply additional effects. UI previews Photoshop layers as a background during the masking process and allows adjustments in real-time.
* Easy-to-Use Interface: Powerful and intuitive UI includes click-and-drag tools that make Primatte easy to learn, even for users new to digital imaging and blue/greenscreen techniques.
* One Step Spill Correction Tools: Single-click tools make color suppression quick and automatic. This allows users to eliminate color from transparent areas, or from opaque areas that have color reflected from the background.
* Fine Tuning Correction Tools: Fine tuning controls allow detail work on more problematic masks and color spill.
* Advanced Mask Control: Built in controls allow users to shrink or blur the mask, making edge modification easy. Fringe color tints, stairstepped (aliased) edge artifacts and other problems are simple to correct.
* Photoshop Action Compatible: Use Primatte with Photoshop's actions when masking multiple, similar photographs in batch mode.
* Key Off Any Color: While blue and green are the most common colors used for Chromakeying backgrounds, Primatte can use almost any color effectively. A sophisticated color algorithm extracts the background color from foreground elements making subtle adjustments very easy.
* Mark and Recall: Save last mask settings for later use with similar images.
Primatte Chromakeyer 2.0 is available for a limited introductory time for $269 (reg. $299). An upgrade for 1.0 users is available for $99 (reg. $129). Demos, tutorials, and samples are available at www.digitalanarchy.com. Primatte 2.0 is available for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Jasc Paint Shop Pro, on Mac OS 8.6 and higher (including OS X), and all Windows variants.
Digital Anarchy (www.digitalanarchy.com) is a privately owned company operating out of San Francisco, California. Digital Anarchy is devoted to creating high-end and high quality cost-effective software products for broadcast designers in the television and film industries. These products solve a wide range of problems that face designers, from creating text effects and background elements to the addition of lighting effects in 2D compositing applications. Digital Anarchy products work in conjunction with a wide range of products from companies such as Adobe, Discreet and Apple.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
