How to Use Green Screen in Premiere Pro

The short answer

To green screen in Premiere Pro, place your new background on a lower video track and your green screen clip on the track above it. Apply the Ultra Key effect to the green screen clip, then use its Key Color eyedropper to select the green in the Program Monitor. Premiere Pro makes that color transparent so the background below shows through. You can then refine the edges and remove green tint in the effect's settings.

Premiere Pro works on recorded footage. It does not replace the background in a live video call. For a live call, you need the background or effects feature in your calling app, or a separate virtual camera tool. A physical green screen helps both workflows, but the editing steps below apply only to video you have already recorded.

What you need before you start

• A clip recorded in front of a green (or blue) backdrop, imported into your project.
• The replacement background: a still image or a video clip, also imported.
• A sequence that contains both clips.
• Optional: a second look at your footage to spot problem areas such as wrinkles, shadows, or green reflecting onto the subject.

Footage quality limits what keying can do. A key usually works best when the backdrop is evenly lit, free of creases, and clearly separated from the subject. Green clothing, green props, or strong green reflections on skin or hair can disappear along with the background. The settings below can reduce these problems, but they cannot fully fix uneven or poorly lit footage.

Step-by-step: removing the green background

1. Stack the tracks

Drag the background clip onto video track V1. Drag the green screen clip onto V2, directly above it, so the two overlap in time. Premiere Pro displays the upper tracks over the lower ones, so the green screen clip must be on the higher track. Success check: the Program Monitor shows only the green screen clip, because it currently covers the background completely.

2. Apply Ultra Key

Open the Effects panel and go to Video Effects, then Keying, then Ultra Key. You can also type "Ultra Key" into the panel's search box. Drag the effect onto the green screen clip on V2. Success check: Ultra Key now appears in the Effect Controls panel when that clip is selected. Nothing changes visually yet, because no key color has been chosen.

3. Pick the key color

In Effect Controls, find Key Color under Ultra Key and click its eyedropper. Then click on the green backdrop in the Program Monitor. Choose a spot that represents the typical green, not the brightest highlight or the darkest shadow. Success check: the green area becomes transparent and your background from V1 appears behind the subject.

4. Inspect the matte

The matte is the black-and-white map that decides what is kept and what is removed. To view it, change Ultra Key's Output setting from Composite to Alpha Channel. In this view, white areas stay visible, black areas become fully transparent, and gray areas become partly see-through.

Success check: the subject should look solid white and the former green area solid black. Gray speckles in the background mean some green is leaking through. Gray patches inside the subject mean parts of them are becoming semi-transparent. Switch Output back to Composite when you finish adjusting.

5. Choose a starting preset

The Setting menu offers Default, Relaxed, Aggressive, and Custom. Aggressive removes more of the background and can help with uneven greens, but it is more likely to eat into fine edges such as hair. Relaxed keeps more detail but may leave traces of green. Try each one while viewing the Alpha Channel, and keep whichever gives the cleanest starting matte. Changing any slider afterward switches the setting to Custom.

6. Refine the key

Ultra Key groups its controls into sections. Adjust one control at a time and watch the Alpha Channel view so you can see what each change does. No universal slider values exist, because the right values depend on your lighting, camera, and backdrop.

Section | Controls | What they help with

Matte Generation | Transparency, Highlight, Shadow, Tolerance, Pedestal | Deciding how much of the background is removed. Pedestal can clear low-level noise in the background, and Tolerance and Shadow can help with darker or uneven parts of the backdrop.

Matte Cleanup | Choke, Soften, Contrast, Mid Point | Tightening or smoothing the edge around the subject. Choke shrinks the matte inward to remove a green outline, and Soften blurs the edge so it blends more naturally.

Spill Suppression | Desaturate, Range, Spill, Luma | Reducing green tint reflected onto the subject, which is common on hair, shoulders, and edges.

Color Correction | Saturation, Hue, Luminance | Adjusting the color of the kept subject so it better matches the new background.

7. Mask out areas outside the backdrop

If the green screen does not fill the whole frame, the edges may show lights, stands, or walls. Keying alone will not remove these because they are not green. You can cut them out with a mask: under Ultra Key in Effect Controls, use the ellipse, four-point polygon, or pen tool to draw around the area you want to keep. Another option is to apply the Crop effect to the green screen clip and trim the edges. This is often called a garbage matte. Success check: only the subject and the new background remain visible across the whole frame.

How to know the key has worked

• In Alpha Channel view, the background is solid black and the subject is solid white, with no stray gray noise or holes.
• In Composite view, there is no visible green outline or green tint on hair, skin, or clothing.
• The edges look natural rather than hard, jagged, or blurry.
• The result holds up during playback, not just on one frame. Scrub through the clip, especially where the subject moves quickly or where hair, hands, or loose clothing cross the edge of the frame.
• The subject's lighting and color look believable against the new background.

Checking a single still frame shows only that the key works at that moment. Motion blur, changing light, and fast movement can expose problems that a paused frame hides. Watching the full clip at normal speed is the only reliable way to confirm the key is clean throughout. Also, a good preview does not guarantee the final export. Export a short test section and review it before you render the whole project.

Common problems and what to try

Problem | What to try

Patchy or noisy background remains | Pick the key color again from a more typical green area, try the Aggressive setting, or raise Pedestal slightly while watching the Alpha Channel view.

Parts of the subject turn see-through | The subject may contain green or reflect it. Try Relaxed, lower the matte generation adjustments, or change the clothing or prop if you can reshoot.

Green outline around the subject | Increase Choke a little, then add a small amount of Soften so the edge does not look cut out.

Green tint on hair or skin | Use the Spill Suppression controls to reduce the tint.

Lights, stands, or room edges are visible | Draw a mask on Ultra Key or apply the Crop effect.

Subject looks pasted on | Use Color Correction in Ultra Key, or other color tools, to match the subject's brightness and color to the background.

Limits of this guide

This guide does not give specific slider numbers, lighting levels, or camera settings. No verified values were available for a particular setup, and good settings vary from one recording to the next. Menu names and panel layouts can also shift between Premiere Pro versions. If an item is not exactly where described, search for it by name in the Effects panel. If keying in Premiere Pro cannot produce a clean result, the most effective fix is usually to improve the original recording, with more even lighting on the backdrop and more distance between the subject and the screen.