Green Screen

Film a phone or monitor that shows flat green and you can drop any picture onto it in editing. This green screen gives you that green on any monitor, TV, tablet or phone in one click: pure green for screen replacement, or chroma key green as a keying backdrop behind products, toys and hands. The same page checks the green subpixels of a display for dead or stuck pixels. Brightness, a timer, full screen and a hidden pointer are built in, and it works in any current browser on Windows, Mac, ChromeOS, Android, iPhone and iPad.

How to use the green screen

1. Pick Chroma key green for a backdrop or Pure green for a screen you will replace. Dark green and Mint are softer room lights.
2. Click the preview, tap it, or press F. The green fills the display and the pointer hides.
3. Look through your camera and set the brightness so the green is bright and even but not clipped. If your camera shows zebra stripes or a histogram, keep the green below the clipping point.
4. Change shade and brightness in full screen with the arrow keys, or by swiping on a phone. Esc or a double tap exits.
5. Leave Keep screen on switched on so the screen does not dim halfway through a take.

The green shades

Film a phone or monitor for screen replacement

Editors replace the picture on a phone, laptop or TV in a shot with a recording of an app, a website or a video. Showing green on the device while you film makes that much easier:

1. Open the green screen full screen on the device in the shot, using Pure green.
2. Stick four small dots of tape or marker stickers near the corners of the screen. Tracking software follows them when the device or camera moves.
3. Turn off lights that reflect in the glass, or angle the device away from them. Reflections break the key.
4. Lower the screen brightness until the green looks even and not glowing in the camera view. A screen at full brightness often blooms onto fingers.
5. Use a shutter speed that matches the screen. 1/50 or 1/60 of a second avoids rolling dark bands on most displays.
6. In editing, key the green out and track the new picture to the corner markers.

Use a monitor or TV as a small green screen

A large monitor or TV showing chroma key green is a clean, evenly lit backdrop for small objects, and it needs no stand or ironing.

• Put the object one arm's length or more in front of the screen and light it with its own lamp. The screen lights only the background.
• Set the camera focus on the object so the screen's pixels blur. That prevents moiré, the wavy pattern a camera sees in a pixel grid.
• For live video, add the Chroma Key filter to your camera in OBS and adjust Similarity, Smoothness and Key Color Spill Reduction until the edges look clean.
• Light your face or product from the front. A soft fill light for video stops the face looking flat against the new background.

Record a short test clip with the webcam recorder to check the key before a long shoot.

Green or blue?

Green keys cleanly with less light, because camera sensors have twice as many green photosites as red or blue. Blue spills less onto the subject and suits blond hair, green clothes and night scenes. Open the blue screen for the blue version of this backdrop.

Check the green subpixels

Green is the brightest primary color, so a pure green screen shows faults clearly:

• A dark dot that stays in place is a green subpixel that does not light.
• A red, blue or white dot is a stuck subpixel.

Confirm faults on every color with the dead pixel test, and try the stuck pixel fixer on stuck dots.

Green lines or a green tint on your screen

A green tint over everything, or green lines that stay when you change apps, comes from the signal or the hardware rather than the picture:

• HDMI or DisplayPort monitor: reseat the cable at both ends, try another cable, and make sure the graphics card sends RGB rather than YCbCr in its control panel.
• Phone with green lines after a drop: the display or its connector is damaged and needs repair.
• Whole screen green on a Windows Insider build with an error message: that is a stop error, fixed the same way as a blue screen of death.

What a green screen in a browser cannot do

The page provides the backdrop. It does not record or key your video, which happens in your camera, editor or streaming app. A screen makes its own light and is small, so it cannot replace a lit backdrop behind a whole person. The exact green your camera records also depends on the screen's color and your white balance, so key with the eyedropper rather than a fixed hex value. Any other color is on the color screen.

Green screen questions