What It Does
EFX Keying-Alpha Plugin Suite provides 17 plugins for green screen keying and alpha matte work in After Effects. Built over years of production compositing where standard After Effects tools fell short, the suite handles edge refinement, spill removal, alpha operations, and color-based selection.
Key Features
Alpha Math lets you convert channels to alpha (luma, R/G/B/C/M/Y to alpha), clear or fill alpha channels, and multiply alpha by a float. You can blend between the original and processed alpha. Useful when you need to rebuild transparency from specific color channels.
Color Select and Color Select HSL isolate pixels based on color values. The HSL version allows invertible conditions per channel, making it easier to select colors that don’t fit simple ranges. Both work well for selecting spill pixels before manual despill work.
Keyer and Keyer HSL are full keying solutions. Keyer HSL supports hue thresholds up to 360 degrees for selecting white. These handle basic to moderate keying tasks without reaching for third-party tools.
Despill, Despill Advanced, and Despill Brute cover a range of spill removal needs. Despill works for standard cases. Despill Advanced gives you more control over which pixels get processed. Despill Brute tackles aggressive spill when subtlety isn’t working. Spill Alpha lets you select spill pixels first, then apply any After Effects effect to remove the color.
Alpha Choke shrinks or expands alpha edges. Unlike standard choking, this preserves thin detail like hair strands by feathering outward instead of inward.
Edge Blur Keyer softens matte edges without destroying fine detail. Edge Bleed removes dark edges left when cameras apply sharpening to footage before keying.
Alpha S’n’P (salt and pepper) cleans small speckles from alpha channels, common after keying noisy footage or using difference mattes. The plugin now includes iterations, replacing the old SnPx5 version.
Alpha Select and Luma Select create selections based on transparency or luminosity values. Alpha Streaks is useful for specific streak artifact removal.
Who It’s For
Compositors working with green screen footage, particularly when dealing with difficult spill, noisy keys, or edge artifacts. The suite solves niche problems that standard After Effects keyers and channel operations don’t address cleanly. If you regularly composite live action, these plugins fill gaps in the native toolset.
Pricing
The full suite costs $49.99 for a single user license. A free version includes three plugins (Alpha Select, Despill, and Luma Select) if you want to test the workflow. Bulk discounts available: 10% off for 2 licenses, 15% off for 5, 20% off for 10.