<p>I think you need to use the Rotobrush rotoscope tool in AE.. Good luck!  It will take a while...</p>

<p>Tutorial link:
<a href="https://library.creativecow.net/harrington_richard/after-effects-cs5-roto/1" rel="nofollow">https://library.creativecow.net/harrington_richard/after-effects-cs5-roto/1</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-01-01T00:21:07.733Z
Yeah, I knew no matter how efficient a tool I find, this is going to be pretty time consuming.  It's about 1800 frames.  I'll check that tool out though.
KC McLaughlin
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-01-01T03:48:56.237Z
Mocha plugin for AE is also worth a look.  It's been used to roto a lot of feature films.
Jason Conrad
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-12-31T21:23:08.623Z
2014-12-31T21:23:08.623Z
tomh
<p>I'm fairly certain you can use alpha masking in Premiere.  Basically you make a black and white animated layer that provides the opacity for the footage in Premiere and the effect gets applied to combine the two layers.  I will double check when I get home to make sure I'm not accidentally thinking of After Effects though.  I sometimes cross the two in my head since I switch between them pretty readily.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-01-01T00:23:10.517Z
Think the advantage of the rotobrush is that it will try to predict where the edges are moving to, so in theory you don't have to re-adjust every frame, only correct it when it goes wrong. In practice though, it's not that clever...
tomh
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-01-01T12:32:22.683Z
You might also want to check out After Effect's mask tracking https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/rigid-mask-tracking.html
stib
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-12-31T20:52:30.313Z
2014-12-31T20:52:30.313Z
AJ Henderson
<p>Basically my problem is I have footage which I need to manually key.  I need something like an unlimited point matte which would allow me to cut an actor out of a background by hand with no limits on the number of points in the matte.  Ideally this would be done in Premiere, but I have access to After Effects as well, I just don't like using it.  Also, if this is possible to do frame by frame as an image sequence in something like GIMP I can do that to.  I'm not sure if it's possible to import an alpha channel into Premiere though.</p>

<after-effects><premiere><keyframes>
Is there such thing as an unlimited point matte in Premiere?
KC McLaughlin
# Is there such thing as an unlimited point matte in Premiere?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-12-31)

Basically my problem is I have footage which I need to manually key. I need something like an unlimited point matte which would allow me to cut an actor out of a background by hand with no limits on the number of points in the matte. Ideally this would be done in Premiere, but I have access to After Effects as well, I just don't like using it. Also, if this is possible to do frame by frame as an image sequence in something like GIMP I can do that to. I'm not sure if it's possible to import an alpha channel into Premiere though.

**Tags:** after-effects, premiere, keyframes


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2014-12-31. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

I think you need to use the Rotobrush rotoscope tool in AE.. Good luck! It will take a while...

Tutorial link:
<https://library.creativecow.net/harrington_richard/after-effects-cs5-roto/1>

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Yeah, I knew no matter how efficient a tool I find, this is going to be pretty time consuming.  It's about 1800 frames.  I'll check that tool out though.  
> **username_2**: Mocha plugin for AE is also worth a look.  It's been used to roto a lot of feature films.  

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### Answer by username_3 on 2014-12-31. Score: 0

I'm fairly certain you can use alpha masking in Premiere. Basically you make a black and white animated layer that provides the opacity for the footage in Premiere and the effect gets applied to combine the two layers. I will double check when I get home to make sure I'm not accidentally thinking of After Effects though. I sometimes cross the two in my head since I switch between them pretty readily.

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Think the advantage of the rotobrush is that it will try to predict where the edges are moving to, so in theory you don't have to re-adjust every frame, only correct it when it goes wrong. In practice though, it's not that clever...  
> **username_4**: You might also want to check out After Effect's mask tracking https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/rigid-mask-tracking.html  

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