Despill to Color
- Sajjad Pirbodaghi
- Dec 15, 2024
- 1 min read
in todays quick post I want to introduce you a very handy tool/Gizmo for Foundry Nuke that has saved me a lot of trouble when removing green/blue screen.
If you are trying to fix an objects edge, by bringing back its original color, then this tool is perfect for you! DespillToColor is designed to work best with a specific user defined screen color and therefore a good local solution for certain areas of your plate.
- pick a blue- / greenscreen color - set or pick a target color.
- 'balance' controls how much red tones are being affected by the despill operation opposed to blue and green tones.
- Increasing the 'gain' will affect a wider range of colors, like the finetune knob in DespillMadness.
- Although using 'erode' and 'falloff' - hidden in the info tab - is not recommended it can be a nifty cheat in rare cases. - like when dealing with edge artefacts in the plate.
Gizmo vs Group
For the sake of quickly trying this tool I uploaded it as a group node. Just download and drag and drop it into your node graph.
If you decide to use DespillToColor more often I recommend converting the group into a gizmo. Unlike a group that is loaded from the toolsets a gizmo will always automatically show its controls in the properties panel on creation. How to create a gizmo > https://youtu.be/mGS9viVddMk
Example pics: (For testing I recommend blurring these jpegs a little to get rid of compression artefacts.)
This DespillToColor tool at popemote looks like exactly the right approach for those stubborn spill issues on edges. I like the idea of picking a specific screen color and then setting a target color to bring back the original detail. It seems like a really smart, localized solution for tricky areas of a plate.
Using ZEnhancer really simplifies the process of cleaning up those tricky edges on keyed footage. I appreciate how it's designed for local fixes with user-defined colors, which is exactly what I needed for a recent project.
Really helpful breakdown of the DespillToColor tool — I especially like how you described picking a specific screen color as a local fix for edge issues. I found some extra background on spill suppression techniques over at Bizarre Lineage Wiki that complements this nicely.
Really appreciate you sharing this—I’ve been wrestling with green screen edges that just won’t cooperate, and the idea of picking a specific screen color as a local fix instead of a global key is exactly what I was missing. I’m definitely going to try setting a target color for those tricky hair strands, especially after reading how it handles localized areas. Found more workflow examples at Neverness to Everness Wiki that helped me see how to apply it to different shot types.
Really enjoyed this breakdown of the local despill approach—picking a specific screen color and target color makes a lot more sense than trying to fix everything globally. I’ve been using ScopeQuill for similar edge cleanup tasks and it’s saved me a ton of manual roto time.