Here is a review I done for photographycorner.com, hope yawl enjoy it.
On the first few tests with this software, I was having a hard time working with it; such as not all the green from the green screen was being removed. Since this was my first time working with a green screen, I decided to do a little more research and glad that I did. As in photography, light is crucial and that’s no different when lighting a green screen. If it is not lighted properly than there will be variances in the color and the software only picks up a certain hue of green or blue.
It’s recommend using two continuous diffused lights for best consistency, but all I had available at the time was one strobe to light the green screen and one for the subject so I had to make due with what I had.
With that said, let’s get to the review…
Upon opening PhotoKey 3 you can see it is pretty well laid out…
To the right you will have options for… Canvas size, orientation, resolution and canvas color.
Once you have chosen those you can select the “Import” icon on the left. Here is where you can import your foreground (green/blue screen image) and your background of choice…
Here’s a screenshot of my imported images…
Images uploaded? This is where the fun begins! Now select the “Key” icon to the left and you’ll see a lot of options to the right like these…
This is where you can adjust blur, screen color choice, crop and spill suppression. If the screen was lighted correctly than there should be no green/blue visible once you select the correct color. I used a green screen but will show you the difference from selecting the option for blue than green…
Blue screen selected…
Green screen selected…
Next is “Filters” where you can adjust many different things such as saturation, contrast, brightness, sharpness, etc. The foreground and background can be adjusted separately so the image can be fine tuned to your liking…
Going in order of the icons to the left after “Filters” is “Position.” This is pretty self explanatory and allows you to scale and rotate the foreground and background images to where suits you best.
Next on the list is “Masks”. If you are familiar with Photoshop
“Effects” has some pretty nifty features such as transparency, light wrap, silhouette, vignette and tint. I find the thing I like best in this menu is light wrap. Depending on your subject and background you can actually control the light from behind the subject to wrap them (hence the name light wrap). This works extremely well on backlit images…
“Overlay” is another import option that allows you add .psd images that have been created in photoshop over the photo such as magazine templates, etc…
“Text” is as sounds, apply any lettering installed on your computer as “font format” to an image with the option of alignment from left to right, bold, italic, size, underlined, color and transparency…
Last but not least is “Export”. All images can be saved as JPEG, TIFF or PNG format…
Here is a before and after image so you can see the difference…
Scott Before
Scott After
So am I happy with this software? I would have to say yes! It is extremely user friendly and works very well.
I used to spend a lot of time in Photoshop with the eraser tool but having PhotoKey 3 allows me to accomplish better results in a quicker time. What else more could you ask for? I am no “pro” and do not claim to be and I know more time with the software and the green screen will yield better results but for the week I have been using it I feel very comfortable with it.
I haven’t had the pleasure to review other products by FXhome but hope I will in the future.
As always, thank you for stopping by PhotographyCorner and taking the time to read my review.
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