How to Make a Transparent Background in Premiere Pro

The short answer

Premiere Pro makes a background transparent by keying it out or masking it away on the clip's video layer. For footage shot against an evenly lit green or blue screen, the Ultra Key effect is the standard tool. For footage without a solid-colour backdrop, you can use opacity masks to isolate the subject, which takes more manual work. Keying works best when the background is a single uniform colour that is clearly different from the subject. A busy or unevenly lit background will rarely key cleanly.

Transparency only survives outside Premiere Pro if you export in a format and codec that carry an alpha channel. An alpha channel is the extra layer of data that stores how transparent each pixel is. Common delivery formats such as H.264 MP4 do not store it, so the removed background comes back as solid black.

What you need before you start

• A clip with a background you can separate, ideally an evenly lit green or blue screen.
• The clip placed on a video track in a sequence. If you want something to appear behind the subject, put the subject on a track above the new background.
• A recent version of Premiere Pro. Panel names and export options have moved between releases, so check the paths below against your installed version.

Key out a green or blue screen with Ultra Key

• 1. Open the Effects panel and search for Ultra Key. It is listed under Video Effects, then Keying.
• 2. Drag Ultra Key onto the clip in the timeline.
• 3. Select the clip and open the Effect Controls panel.
• 4. Choose the eyedropper next to Key Color and click a representative area of the background in the Program Monitor.
• 5. Change the Output setting from Composite to Alpha Channel. The view becomes black and white: white is kept, black is transparent, and grey is partly transparent.
• 6. Adjust the Matte Generation settings, such as Transparency, Highlight, Shadow, Tolerance and Pedestal, until the background is solid black and the subject is solid white.
• 7. Use Matte Cleanup (Choke, Soften, Contrast) to tidy edges, and Spill Suppression to reduce coloured fringing on hair and clothing.
• 8. Set Output back to Composite to see the final result.

Premiere Pro also includes simpler keys, such as Color Key, but Ultra Key gives more control over edges and spill and is usually the better place to start.

Remove a background without a green screen

If there is no solid backdrop, select the clip and expand Opacity in the Effect Controls panel. Draw an ellipse, rectangle or free-draw Bezier (pen) mask around the subject. Then adjust Mask Feather and Mask Expansion, and track or keyframe the mask path if the subject moves. Everything outside the mask becomes transparent.

This works well for static or slow-moving shots. Fast or complex movement usually needs frame-by-frame correction. Some editors switch to a dedicated rotoscoping tool for those shots. Check your current release notes before relying on any automatic background-removal feature, because none could be confirmed for this guide.

Check that the background is actually transparent

An empty area in the Program Monitor appears black by default, so you can't tell transparency from a black background. Open the Program Monitor settings (the wrench icon) and turn on Transparency Grid. Transparent areas then show a checkerboard pattern. If you still see solid colour where the background was, the key or mask is not removing it fully.

Export with transparency intact

In the export settings, choose a format and codec that support an alpha channel. QuickTime with Apple ProRes 4444 is a common choice, and GoPro CineForm with alpha is another option. Confirm that the alpha or maximum-depth option for that codec is turned on. The exact labels differ between versions. You can also export a PNG image sequence, which supports alpha. H.264 and HEVC in MP4 do not keep transparency.

To confirm the export worked, import the exported file back into a sequence over another clip or a colour matte, and check that the lower layer shows through where the background was.

What this means for the clip's speech audio

Keying and masking change only the picture. Speech recorded by a webcam's built-in microphone or a separate mic stays on the linked audio track and is not altered by Ultra Key or opacity masks.

The export format can still affect the audio. A QuickTime file with a ProRes codec can carry an audio track alongside the transparent video. An image sequence such as PNG cannot hold audio, so export the dialogue separately as an audio file and line it up again in the final project. After export, play the file back and confirm the speech is present and in sync.

Limits of this guide

No version-specific documentation, measurements or test results were supplied for this article. The steps above describe Premiere Pro's long-standing keying, masking and export tools. Exact menu names, default settings and codec options may differ in your version. No figures are given for key quality, export file sizes or audio behaviour, because none were available to support them.