Great greenscreen paint from Home Depot

[Ben Syverson]

I went to Home Depot today and picked up all the saturated green paint chips they had. I brought them home, and shot them under neutral lights, as well as the Lee 738 filter I described in this thread:
http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=109135

The winner was Behr S-G-430 ("Sparkling Apple"). When shot with controlled lighting and perfect white balance (using a Macbeth ColorChecker as reference), it put out a bright Green signal with low and well-balanced Blue and Red components. The other chips all had uneven amounts of R&B, or low G output, etc.

If you check out the attached image, you'll see two shots, one taken with bare fluorescents, and one taken with them gelled with 738. You can see that in the white-light image, the chip reflects a nice healthy green. When shot under the Lee 738, it reflects a near-perfect green (unsurprising, since Lee 738 is such a great green filter that just about anything shot under it reflects pure green).

I also picked up a 8'9" x 11'9" canvas drop cloth while I was at Home Depot... Next time, I'm picking up some green-tinted primer and Sparkling Apple so I can paint my own DIY greenscreen background!

[Nate Benson]

I was just about to post a thread about buying green-screen paint.
My roommate moved out so I decided to make their room a studio and what the heck, might as well make it have a green screen.

thanks for posting this, I will definitely check it out

[Carl Middleton]

Originally Posted by Nate Benson

My roommate moved out so I decided to make their room a studio and what the heck, might as well make it have a green screen.

Gahaha, that's such awesome logic! Who needs roommates helping to pay the bills?! What you need is a greenscreen room! ;)

Cheers and good luck ;)

C

[Ben Syverson]

Given what it can cost to rent a studio space, I'd say the logic is pretty sound! :)

[Carl Middleton]

Touche' ;)

C

[Nate Benson]

Originally Posted by Carl Middleton

Gahaha, that's such awesome logic! Who needs roommates helping to pay the bills?! What you need is a greenscreen room! ;)

Cheers and good luck ;)

C

well, long story short, I just got a years of rent back due to my dealing with a ridiculous bat infestation, so all the money I got back as already been put forth into next years rent. I wanted to invested into going HD, but my financial advisor (ma & pa benson) insisted I do the smart thing and put it to good use, like rent.

[Ben Syverson]

Originally Posted by Nate Benson

well, long story short, I just got a years of rent back due to my dealing with a ridiculous bat infestation

!!!

incredible...

[Dale Stoltzfus]

I just copied that into Photoshop. In the green-lit image, I found a few spots that registered 0 red and blue, and 191 green. What is really cool, is even on the fingers, red and blue numbers are mostly below 50 while green numbers seem to be largely around 200!

[Ben Syverson]

Yeah, cool, huh? That's the magic of Lee 738! :)

Luckily, the Sparkling Apple gives pretty good numbers even under white light.

[Ronnie Richardson]

Originally Posted by Nate Benson

dealing with a ridiculous bat infestation

Cool, you live next to a baseball field?
I'd take a rediculous over a serious bat any day.

Sorry folks, it's been one of those days.

[Nate Benson]

Originally Posted by Ronnie Richardson

Cool, you live next to a baseball field?
I'd take a rediculous over a serious bat any day.

Sorry folks, it's been one of those days.

nope, live in a 3 bedroom apartment in downtown buffalo.
the building next to me is condemned and windowless. at dusk in the summer you can see hordes of bats coming out of there.

[Ben Syverson]

I picked up some samples at Benjamin Moore, and did a bit more testing...

It turns out that Sparkling Apple has very balanced R&B levels, but there are other greens that may key better under white light.

For example, Benjamin Moore 2032-10 ("Neon Green") gives a G level of 61% versus Sparkling Apple's 74%, but Neon Green absolutely demolished all the red (0%! vs 38%), and absorbed blue better as well (18% vs 30%).

That means that the color difference value between R&B and G for Neon Green is around 51%, versus 41% for Sparkling Apple. In fact, Behr S-G-440 ("Green Acres") gives 48% color difference, so it may be a better choice if you're buying Behr paint.

But I think Benjamin Moore's Neon Green and Traffic Light Green are the best bet. I couldn't believe that Neon Green was absorbing 100% of the red in white light!

Note that if you're mostly using green light, you'll want a lighter color like Sparkling Apple which reflects more green...

The next step is actually painting some canvas...

[Benjamin Hill]

I used some Savage chroma-key paper on a shoot and we took a scrap to the store and matched it from that- $10 a gallon for matte finish acrylic latex on sale.

In my experience there is a range of greens that will all work fine for keying; getting the lighting even is really the tricky part.

[Ben Syverson]

Doing greenscreen is challenging, so you want to stack the deck in your favor wherever possible. That's why I'm in the process of searching out the best green paint commonly available, and the best green filtration for the screen lighting.

Getting your lighting even is really just the beginning of the story. There are plenty of backgrounds that will "work fine," but with a little extra effort, you can take your composites from "fine" to "flawless."

[Benjamin Hill]

Originally Posted by Ben Syverson

Doing greenscreen is challenging, so you want to stack the deck in your favor wherever possible. That's why I'm in the process of searching out the best green paint commonly available, and the best green filtration for the screen lighting.

Getting your lighting even is really just the beginning of the story. There are plenty of backgrounds that will "work fine," but with a little extra effort, you can take your composites from "fine" to "flawless."

In my firsthand, on-set experience getting the lighting even is the beginning, middle and end of the story.