Background Remover


Background Remover automatically detects people, animals and objects that are the main focus of your videos, allowing you to extract a clean key from footage shot without a greenscreen or bluescreen.

Background Remover is a quick, easy choice for masking the backdrop to a scene.

What’s new?

  • Clip Injection is a new Output option that lets you easily insert media between subject and background of your video.

Inserting titles between subject and background

Inserting titles between subject and background
Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro may prevent you from selecting the new Clip Injection feature on existing uses of Background Remover on your timeline. If so, please delete these older instances of Background Remover from your timeline and apply the effect again.

Tips

  • Raise the Sensitivity parameter to preserve finer details such as hair or fingertips. This parameter works best for human subjects. Decrease this parameter when detecting inanimate objects, animals, or when the output appears noisy.
  • When you have the possibilty to control your surroundings before shooting a video that will be processed by Background Remover, remove any objects that might be moving behind your subject. A static background with fewer details will be easier to separate from your subject, giving excellent results.
  • When Background Remover is applied through the Title layer in Final Cut Pro the background is normally filled with transparent black. Assign media through the given Drop Zone and enable the Fill Background option to use this media as the background to your clip.

Requirements

Background Remover requires macOS 14 Sonoma.

Compatibility

Background Remover is compatible with Final Cut Pro, Motion, Premiere Pro and After Effects.

Parameters

Presets

Presets contain a snapshot of your effect configuration. 7 built-in presets are available.

When you save parameter configuration to a file on disk, this file can later be loaded to recreate the same effect configuration. Presets generated in one video application can be used by the same plug-in running in a different video application.

How do I use the presets popup menu?

Detection

Sensitivity

Set to 90% by default.

Increase this parameter when detecting human subjects. This may lead to a more precise mask, preserving fine detail such as hair, fingers, etc. Decrease this parameter when detecting animals, objects or a combination of human subjects and inanimate objects.

Sharpness

Set to 90% by default.

Controls the amount of detail preserved along the edge of the detected subject.

Output

Output

The following options are available:

  • Subject — initial selection
    Output the subject alone.
  • Background
    Output the background. Areas where the subject appears are transparent.
  • Mask
    Outputs a black and white mask, suitable for turning the detection into a matte track.
  • Solid Color
    Outputs a solid color for the subject and background (which defaults to transparent black).
  • Defocus
    Applies a blur to the subject or background, allowing you to simulate depth of field effects.
  • Clip Injection
    Allows you to insert a different clip between the subject and background. When enabled, additional parameters let you configure the geometry and blend mode of the secondary clip.

Invert

Off by default.

Inverts the black and white mask when the Output parameter is set to Mask.

Subject

Color set to
100% red, 100% blue, 100% alpha in the SRGB color space by default.
Color used to fill the subject.

Background

Color set to
black by default.
Color used to fill the background.

Defocus

The following options are available:

  • Background — initial selection
    Blurs the background.
  • Subject
    Blurs the subject.

Amount

Set to 10% by default.

Strength of the blur applied to either the subject or background.

Clip

Lets you provide additional media to the effect.

The user interface varies by host:

Drop Zones in Final Cut Pro
Drop Zones in Motion
Video Track Menu in Premiere Pro
Layer Menu in After Effects
Any clip assigned to this parameter is inserted between the subject and background of your video when the Output parameter is set to Clip Injection.

Clip Position

Controls the position of the clip inserted between the subject and background.

Clip Angle

Set to 0° by default.

Controls the angle of the clip inserted between the subject and background.

Clip Scale

Set to 1 by default. Only values between 0 and 2 are allowed.

Controls the relative scale of the clip inserted between the subject and background.

Clip Blend Mode

Lets you pick the blend mode used to composite the clip over the background of your video.

Subject casts shadow

Controls whether the subject casts a shadow over the injected clip and the background. When enabled, additional parameters become available to configure the drop shadow.

The following options are available:

  • Off — initial selection
  • Over clip only
    The drop shadow is visible over the injected clip only, leaving the background unchanged.
  • Over clip and background
    The drop shadow is visible over both the injected clip and the background.

Shadow Offset X

Controls the horizontal position of the drop shadow cast by the subject over the injected clip and background.

Shadow Offset Y

Controls the horizontal position of the drop shadow cast by the subject over the injected clip and background.

Shadow Color

Controls the color of the drop shadow cast by the subject over the injected clip and background.

Shadow Softness

Controls the softness of the drop shadow cast by the subject over the injected clip and background.

Shadow Blend Mode

Lets you pick the blend mode used to composite the shadow over the injected clip and/or background of your video.

Outline

Outline

The following options are available:

  • Off — initial selection
    No outline is drawn.
  • Above
    The outline is drawn above the subject.
  • Below
    The outline is draw behind the subject, allowing fine details along the edges to remain visible. Note that when drawing the outline below the subject, and the Output parameter is set to Mask, the outline will not be visible in the output.

Color

Set to
100% green, 100% blue, 100% alpha in the SRGB color space by default.
Color used to draw the outline when the Outline parameter is set to Below or Above.

Width

Set to 50% by default.

Size of the outline.

Softness

Set to 0% by default.

Softness of the outline.

Crop

Crop

Allows you to crop the output to a given rectangular region. This can be helpful in situations where multiple subjects are detected within the same frame, but you wish to display only those within a given region.

The following options are available:

  • Off — initial selection
    The output is not cropped.
  • Keyframable Region
    The output is cropped according to a rectangular region. You may use keyframes to animate the location and size of this region over time.
  • Trackable Region
    The output is cropped according to a rectangular region. You may track this region over time to follow the movement of your subject across the frame.

Region

A rectangular region, centered in the frame by default.

Initial location in the frame
Crop region, as a keyframable parameter. This parameter is available only when Crop is set to Keyframable Region.

Trackable Region

Lets you track an object in your video. To learn more about object tracking:

Tracking Objects in Video

A rectangular crop region you may track to follow your subject as it moves across the frame.

Crop region, as a keyframable parameter. This parameter is available only when Crop is set to Trackable Region.

Softness

Set to 0% by default.

Blurs the crop region along its edges.