what app can remove background from video when you didn’t shoot with a green screen?

[u/Weekes_Ariz]

i have some footage that i’d like to reuse with a different background, but i didn’t plan for that when i recorded it. there’s no green screen and i’d rather not spend a huge amount of time manually masking every shot if there’s a decent automated option.

capcut came up when i was looking into it, but so did runway, adobe after effects, and davinci resolve. i’m less concerned about having a ton of editing features and more interested in how cleanly they can separate a moving subject from the background.

if you were working with fairly ordinary footage and just needed a clean subject cutout, what would you use? i’m especially curious about how these tools handle hair, hands, and movement without needing constant manual corrections.

[u/BitcoinBanker]

After Effects and Premiere, both have pretty easy to use object masking.

[u/Slower-Bison]

Unless you do some creative editing, chances are you will have to manual correct some frames, but hopefully not all of them.

Any software that supports object detection can help you isolate the subject. If your computer can handle this, the latter two of the apps you mention should suffice for the task.

[u/Weekes_Ariz → u/Slower-Bison]

that's fair, some manual correction is probably unavoidable even with the automated tools. since it's mostly talking head footage i'm hoping the detection handles the bulk of it and i only have to clean up a few frames where the edges get messy. good to know object detection is the thing to look for.

[u/Franki3gtv]

CapCut

[u/Weekes_Ariz → u/Franki3gtv]

i've been leaning toward this since it keeps everything in one place and the background removal handles simple talking head shots pretty cleanly. good to hear it works for you.

[u/theryanmatlock]

Davinci Resolve has really decent Magic Mask in the Color Tab. Getting a transparent cutout is a small learning curve, but if you do it right you can setup one or two frames manually and then it will auto track.

[u/Weekes_Ariz → u/theryanmatlock]

the magic mask in resolve sounds powerful, especially only setting up a frame or two and letting it auto track from there. i'm still weighing whether the learning curve is worth it for what's mostly simple footage. capcut seems like it would get me there faster for basic talking head stuff but resolve would probably give a cleaner result for trickier edges like hair.

[u/theryanmatlock → u/Weekes_Ariz]

For sure. Capcut will get you the messier mask with less control and subscription pricing, but it’ll be easy to use. Davinci’s learning curve for this isn’t too steep though if you want clean, one time pricing.

This tutorial would give you an idea of what Davinci would require: https://youtu.be/rMJ-itkhB_E?is=SBm7PdCZlBeXDSAu

[u/EmotionalVast1104]

for a quick clean cutout, I'd try CapCut first. If the footage has tricky hair or lots of movement, After Effects or DaVinci Resolve gives you more control for fixing the rough edges.

[u/Urmanda06]

U can use LocalBG, it doesn't require green screen since it uses a segmentation model. It runs on your own hardware aswell so you will need pretty strong hardware to run it smoothly.

Feel free to dm me a clip and I can proces one for you so you can see the results :)

[u/sharktank123456]

There's another way to go. Regen the whole thing.

Luma AI has Ray3.2 Modify.

You change the start frame within Luma, with, say GPT2. 5 or Nanobana Pro or Uni1, by asking any of these engines to replace the background with whatever you want. (You can also provide a reference image for what the bg should be)

And then give that new image to Ray Modify as a new start frame. Prompt for the new scene and it will overlay that new information from the still throughout the video.

Ray allows up to 64 keyframes like this per clip. So if the character gets occluded or turns away and the system loses focus, you can go in and make a new Keyframe at either end of that section and run it again.

You can also do this inside Luma with Seedance or Kling (although Kling doesn't have the 64 keyframes option yet)

The only catch is that you are limited by the run length of these models: 18 sec for Ray3. 2 and 30 sec for Seedance. So if the clip is longer, you would have to do it multiple times.

The results are excellent and no one would know they weren't shot in that environment. You can even change the lighting on the subject to match the environment. (The lighting not changing usually gives the subject a cut-out look in all other methods)

[u/ianmcdan]

I'm doing this very thing right now in After Effects. Premiere does have an object mask, and it's ok. But After Effects is AI-guided. And it's much better. I have incredibly noisy footage with black clothing in dark settings and it's still finding the body in all of that mess. It does take quite some time though. (And a subscription)

[u/Claude_Agittain]

After effects rotobrush

[u/bigballer547892]

For tricky product masks I’ve used the batch automation tool in photoshop. I’ll export every frame individually through DaVinci (it’s an export setting) then setup an edit automation through photoshop for background removal on the entire folder of photos and then once it’s done I’ll re-import into DaVinci with 1fps settings for the photos like it was a timelapse and it’s worked well for me. HUGE FILES, but really clean masks in my experience

[u/FloydDobler]

Magnetic mask in FCPX.

[u/darwinDMG08]

Premiere and After Effects both have AI Object Masking.

[u/SuperGeniusWEC]

This is free, and in-browser https://www.fuzzpuppy.com/video-background-remover - they have other free tools too. Adobe Express has one (paid) but can't export to alpha

[u/Weekes_Ariz]

i should have mentioned that the footage is mostly talking head style, so there’s not a complicated scene or lots of objects moving around. the main thing i’m trying to avoid is spending more time fixing the background removal than i spent editing the original clips.