This browser-based green-screen software can cut out backgrounds in seconds

 

 

I don't know about you guys, but I really don't enjoy clipping. I don't like cutting things out digitally, and it really annoys me when I have to spend time doing it (mostly because I'm just not very good). I don't know if Jere Hietala had me in mind when he created Tailorframe and the keying software Complete, but it seems he at least considered that this isn't a process most people like to go through. Complete is a browser-based photo software that lets you upload any image with a green or blue chromakey backdrop (aka 'greenscreen') and, in a matter of seconds, generates a high-resolution PNG that can be downloaded and edited into a final background. It sounded too good to be true, but Jere insisted I give it a shot before dismissing it. 

I'm glad he did. It works way better than I thought it could. 

Note: Though I tested this with some of my own archival images, I couldn't publish them due to client NDAs, so I had Jere provide me some photos from his end to test. Unfortunately, the images he provided didn't work as well as my own images that I can't show, so you'll have to take my word for it that though it's not perfect in the following examples, it does a lot better than what you're going to be seeing here. 

Complete is incredibly simple to use. In fact, it's so simple it surprised me because I expected there to be some kind of learning curve, or more steps involved. After you create a profile and log in, you're greeted with a screen that just begs you to get started. 

 

 

You just... drag and drop images into the browser, or click the giant rectangle to open up a directory to select files. You can upload one, or several images at once to be processed. 

Once they upload, Complete takes a few seconds to process the images (the larger the image, the longer it takes, but I waited no longer than a minute at any given time), and then a clipped image is created that you can then download. 

 

 

As an example, I started with this image:

 

 

And after Complete was finished, it generated this (except as a PNG. What you're seeing below is the JPEG version with a white background): 

 

 

That's not bad! However, it's also not perfect. As discussed, the images I processed that Complete provided has a few hitches here and there, and the cause is easy to understand. Below you can see a zoomed-in crop of a problem area in another photo I uploaded:

 

 

The side of his head as well as the whole right side of his glasses came out along with the chromakey background. If we look closely at the original, we can see why: green cast from the background.

 

 

This is actually why many composite photographers don't shoot on chromakey anymore: that kind of green cast affects skin tone and reflects of surfaces, which makes blending subjects into backgrounds even more time consuming and frustrating. Right now, Complete only works on green and blue chroma backgrounds, not grey or white, because I imagine that is what they have programed their algorithm to pick out. Asking a computer to pick out other colors like grey, white or black might be too much to ask at this point, since many of those colors exist within an image and a resulting cut would not be easy to confine to just a background. 

A good fix for this problem would be to allow the uploader to adjust the "strength" of the algorithm's cut, similar to the "Tolerance" on the Magic Wand tool in Photoshop. That way, a user could at least adjust the way an image is being clipped rather than find that they wasted an upload, which would also be a waste of money. 

Money you say? Correct, this isn't a free service (and it shouldn't be), but the way it is set up is very user-friendly. It takes a lot from how video game companies deal with in-game currency by allowing you to spend your actual dollars on coins that then buy you services. Except that the coins are much more straightforward than in any video game, as each clip just costs one coin. 

 

 

I have absolutely no problem with the way this is set up, and customers that would use this kind of service are absolutely going to be doing more than one or two clips. As a bonus, if you want to try this out, you don't have to buy anything. Upon signing up, every user gets 10 free clips that allow you to determine if the service is right for you. 

After talking with Jere a bit on the issue I'm seeing with reflections, he said they were aware of the problem and are actively working to implement a kind of "strength" option in the service. But for version one of this software, this isn't bad at all.

I briefly spoke to two friends of mine in the retouching/photography space to gauge their thoughts on Complete. Renee Robyn, who only saw some results I generated for her, was impressed at how well it clipped and said that in most cases, "this will get a photographer 90% of the way there" in a few seconds, rather than half an hour. Pratik Naik, a professional high end retoucher, was also impressed. Though like both Renee and myself, he has very few chroma images with which to test, he also said that though he "would need the mask to tweak it rather than [use] an extracted version" directly, it's otherwise good. What Pratik is saying goes along the lines of my complaints: I want to be able to adjust Complete's mask to better suit individual images. Without that, and just being forced to use the exported PNG, it's not quite there for high end work. I agree with this sentiment. However, his next comment was exactly where my thoughts went after testing Complete: "Would be useful for video more so, I imagine."

Because so few photographers use green screen for the aforementioned reasons, this might not be as useful to many of you. What it could be useful for, however, is video. Though monumentally more complicated and with files considerably larger, if Complete could be augmented to support video clips, they would have an absolute cash cow on their hands. Video production still heavily uses green screen, and having a fast and easy way to do the clipping would save studios and individuals thousands of dollars. After speaking to Jere about video support, he seemed excited to try and bring that option to Complete. 

As it stands now, as basically an alpha software, Complete is in a really good place. It works as advertised, and provided there aren't highlights or reflections from the background onto the subject, it works really, really well. Clipping is normally a time consuming and annoying process, but if Complete could get high-end users 90% of the way there in a matter of seconds, there is absolutely value in what they have created. I'll be following Complete closely as they enhance their product, because as Jere told me, this is only the beginning.