HSLKeyer

HSLKeyer derives a key from hue, saturation and luminance. It is a Resolve FX tool based on the HSL Qualifier, rather than a DeltaKeyer with Clean Plate and dedicated spill controls. It is useful for simple colored backgrounds, local object grading and neon isolation.

The main eyedropper establishes a range from a drag in the Viewer. Add/Subtract Color Range changes the inner range, while Add/Subtract Softness modifies its transition toward the outer range. These solve different problems: an unwanted core color and an abrupt edge should not receive the same correction.

For normal background removal, sample the color that should become transparent. Invert switches the sides and makes sampled colors opaque. That is often useful for a clothing or neon mask; the supplied screenshot already has Invert enabled, so its state is not a universal starting point.

Use Hue, Use Saturation and Use Luminance enable independent components. Saturation alone can select colorful regions regardless of hue and brightness; Hue plus Saturation can suit a colored object whose shadows and highlights should remain included. Disabling a component broadens the accepted colors rather than automatically improving the matte.

Matte Finesse refines the extracted key. Pre Filter acts before sampling, Clean Black suppresses white specks in black, and Clean White fills dark holes in white. Raising Black Clip drives intermediate values toward black; lowering White Clip drives them toward white. Judge these controls after deciding the Invert polarity.

The 1 and 2 buttons in Matte Finesse switch control pages rather than ready-made presets. The manual also describes Morph Operation/Radius, Denoise, Shadow/Midtone/Highlight and Post Filter. These refine shape and noise separately from the initial color selection.

Blur Radius softens the boundary but can spread treatment beyond the silhouette and create a halo. In/Out Ratio changes this distribution: increasing it helps fill small black holes, while negative values suppress small white specks. Inspect fine detail separately from broad solid regions.

Garbage Matte confines selection to a rectangle or ellipse. Enabling a shape exposes position, size, rotation and softness; its own Invert is separate from the top-level color-key inversion. If the subject moves, the shape must follow it throughout the shot.

Alpha Highlight keeps opaque regions in color and displays transparent regions as gray. Alpha Highlight B/W displays a monochrome Alpha view. These are diagnostic modes rather than a mask socket. Restore Final Composite for production wiring and, when a mask is required, extract Alpha with Bitmap set to Channel = Alpha.

For local grading, the original RGB goes directly to ColorCorrector.Input, while HSLKeyer → Bitmap feeds ColorCorrector.EffectMask. For Glow, send the same mask to GlowMask to select emitters. For background replacement, the keyed image feeds Merge.Foreground and the new background feeds Background.

Inspect the result over a contrasting new background and during playback: a clean still can hide edge noise, color leakage and changing exposure. HSLKeyer does not automatically despill green edges or recover hair transparency from heavily compressed footage; first improve the source and selected range.