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How to remove green screen with Delta Keyer in DaVinci Resolve Fusion

DaVinci Resolve Fusion Delta Keyer removes green and blue screen backgrounds with advanced matte controls. This guide covers setup, pre-matte refinement, spill suppression, and clean plate integration.

How do you remove green screen with Delta Keyer in DaVinci Resolve Fusion?

Drag the Delta Keyer from the effects library onto the connection between your green screen clip and the foreground input of a merge node. In the inspector, use the eyedropper to sample the green screen color in the viewer. The Delta Keyer analyzes the color and generates a matte. Use the pre-matte, matte, fringe, and tuning tabs to refine the key until the background is fully transparent and the subject has clean edges.

The Delta Keyer is the primary chroma key tool in Fusion. It is designed to handle challenging green and blue screen footage including uneven lighting, motion blur, and fine detail like hair and smoke. The node-based workflow lets you adjust the keying parameters independently and combine the key with masks, color corrections, and other tools.

For more DaVinci Resolve tips, read our guide on DaVinci Resolve AI Tools for Colorists and Editors.

Master Fusion effects with How to use node-based compositing in DaVinci Resolve Fusion.

How do you refine a Delta Keyer matte in Fusion?

After sampling the screen color, the inspector shows four tabs for refining the matte. The Pre-Matte tab lets you adjust the initial color range selection. Use the Low and High sliders to tighten or expand the range of green being keyed. The Pre-Blur control pre-blurs the source before analysis to reduce noise in the matte.

The Matte tab controls the final black-and-white matte. The Black and White clip controls set the transparency floor and ceiling. Gamma adjusts the matte's midtones. Use the Erode/Dilate control to shrink or expand the matte edge — erode removes background fringe, dilate fills holes in the subject.

The Fringe tab handles color spill — the green or blue light that reflects onto the subject's edges. The Spill control desaturates the fringe color. The Fringe Balance control shifts the fringe color toward a more natural tone. For fine hair detail, the Fringe mode with Low/High controls preserves transparency in individual strands.

The Tuning tab provides advanced controls for the keying algorithm itself. The Replace mode lets you replace the screen color with a different color or background plate before the merge, reducing edge artifacts.

How do you use a clean plate with Delta Keyer in Fusion?

Add a Clean Plate node between the Delta Keyer and the Merge node. The Clean Plate generates a clean background from the green screen footage itself by analyzing frames where the subject is not present. Connect it to the blue auxiliary input of the Delta Keyer.

The Clean Plate is especially useful for clips with reflections, hair, and smoke. These elements contain some of the screen color within the subject area, and the Clean Plate helps the Delta Keyer distinguish between the screen color that should be removed and the screen color that is naturally part of the subject.

For editors who pre-select footage in Cutsio before sending to Resolve, you can identify the specific clips that need green screen keying and organize them into collections. Export an EDL with only the keyed clips, and build your Fusion composite on a clean, pre-edited timeline.