Using the Track Matte Key Effect in Premiere Pro 2022 – All You Need to Know

In this video, you will learn how the Track Matte Key Effect in Premiere Pro works. Learn to create transitions using shapes and Color Mattes. See how you can easily use track mattes that you can get by downloading them from various websites.

Track Matte Key Effect in Premiere Pro

In this video. We’re going to take a look at the track matte key effect. This is pretty much all you need to know to use it as a transition or make the video play through text.

What Does a Track Matte Do?

So what does a track matte do when you have a clip with black and white in it? It will make the black or white transparent so it can show through the underlying layer.

On my timeline here, this top track is the matte and it is a clip. So if I turn off these other two tracks and I just scroll through the clip, this is what can be used as a track matte. But depending on if it’s black or white, it’s going to show or hide the underlying layer. The two clips below it are the clips that we’re going to use that are overlapping each other for a transition.

The clip on V2 has a track matte key effect on it, and you can see in the program monitor up here where the lightest area is, area that is actually white in our track matte clip and the other area is black. So if you look at V2, that is where the track matte key effect is. In the effects control,

you see that the matte is on video three and there’s this layer right here and then the composite is set to matte Luma. That means that anything that is in white will be fully transparent, but anything that is darker will be less transparent. And so that is with the Luma option. Sometimes you’ll set the composite to matte Alpha.

It will make that black part transparent and the white part will remain.

How to Make a Track Matte Transition From a Shape

So now let’s see some examples. So in this first example, this is the effect we’re going for. We’re going to use graphic shapes to make our track matte transition. First, decide where you want to put your transition in on your timeline. In this case, I have two clips on my timeline.

I’m just going to just drag one of my clips on top of the other and overlap to two clips a couple of seconds. Where these clips overlap is where my transition is going to be. Now hit the letter C on your keyboard or your razor tool and make a cut at the end of the bottom clip. Hit V To go back to your selection tool. We’re going to use the clip on top for the actual transition.

So now I’m going over to the tools panel. So now I’m going to drag my elipse over to my program monitor. I hold down shift, I can draw a perfect circle. And in the essential graphics panel, I’m going to fill this with white. I want a white circle. Say okay. Now I want to make the graphic that I made on V3 the same size as my transition.

So I’m going to resize that next. I’m going to animate the circle. So with a graphic selected, come over to the effects control panel and under shape and under Transform. I’ll click on position and scale for my keyframes. So now I’m going to zoom out my program window because I’m going to have to see where I’ve moved my circle out of the frames.

So I changed my position values. So the circle is out of frame. I’m just going to move this over and move it down a little bit and make sure it is out of frame. And you can see that this red box over here to the lower right of the frame is actually the circle. So that’s how you know where it is.

So now I’m going to lasso these keyframes and move these over to the beginning. For the next set of keyframes, I’m going to move the position so the circle, comes back in the frame, and then keep on moving it until it’s kind of in the center of the frame and scale it up until it fills the whole frame.

Just like that. Now I can select these two keyframes and right click and come down and say EASE IN and move these keyframes all the way over to the end and select the first keyframes and right click and say EASE OUT. Now on V2 where the second track is up to my effects. Search for track there’s track matte key drag that on to that second clip come over to the effects controls under matte and select video three because that is where my graphic is that I just made. For composite, you can either try matte Alpha or matte Luma just to see what looks best.

We’ll go with Matte Alpha this time and if I could just scroll slowly over the clip. You see the graphic coming over the clip and here is the effect. Now you did all that work and if you like your effect, what you do is you can actually save it and use it later in another project. So to do that with this graphic layer on a timeline all by itself, just like this, take all the other clips out and then you can just export it and name it whatever you like.

Choose match source, adaptive high bitrate export it, and then bring it back into your project and you can test it by bringing it back into your project. Take out the graphic layer that you made before and replace it on your timeline and you may have to change your composite to matte Luma, but you can test it in now. You can use it in another project.

You already know how to set up your timeline, just overlap your tracks, make a cut at the end of your bottom track, put your matte above the top track and make it the same size and you’re good to go. If you haven’t yet subscribed it. That subscribe button and turn on notifications so you won’t miss any of my tutorials.

How to Make Video Play Through a Graphic

In this example, we can use a matte that has a video clip as its background. So I have a clip on the timeline and the premiere pro, a logo on the track above it. And I made it’s the same length as the clip below. In this case, the matte is the logo and you want the movie to show up behind it.

So now I’m going to the Effects panel and search for track and get the track matte key and drag it onto the bottom clip. And now with the video track selected and I’m going to go to the effects control and under matte, I’m going to select video 2, and under composite. I’m going to select matte Luma because we want the lighter areas in the logo to show the video below.

So the PR is the area that is going to show the video below and this is what it looks like. In this next example, I placed a clip on the timeline and above it a graphic I created in photoshop with an Alpha channel background on the track above it. Now if we want the video to show to the text, I’ll get the track matte key effect and put it on the video clip on the bottom and go over to matte, and select video 2.

And in this case Matte Alpha works because this graphic was saved with an alpha channel and now I can see the video through the letters.

How to Make a Smoky Transition Using a Track Matte

In this example, we’re going to create a smoky transition from a scene where people are walking in a crowded marketplace to a scene where people are walking on the sidewalks in a big city.

But just like before, decide where you want your transition. We’re going to use this first clip as our transition, and this time we’re going to put it above our second clip and overlap it as long as we need to a couple of seconds, then make your cut. So that your transition matches with the start of your bottom clip.

Now for matte, we’re actually going to create a black color matte and come over here to our says new item. This icon over here in the bottom and select color matte And you’ll default to your width of your video settings, say okay. And you can choose a color. And our color matte is already set to black up here in the far left corner, say okay. Choose a name for your color matte say okay. Now drag your color matte over to your timeline and make it same size as the track that you cut on V2.

Then go over to your effects panel and search for something called VR Fractal Noise. Drag that onto your black color matte. And over here in the effects control uncheck Auto VR properties and dropdown select stereoscopic over/under. Set fractal type to turbulent Sharpe. As you see, we already have an effect in the program monitor. So now we’re going to animate, move the play, head to the beginning and hit the stopwatch for brightness, complexity and evolution.

So we have keyframes there started. For brightness set it to -100 complexity set to one, evolution set to zero, and move to the back and we’ll set the brightness to 100, complexity to ten and evolution to 295. I’ll select the track on V2 come over here to my track matte key effect. Drag it on to my clip on V2 where I have my cuts and I’ll set matte to video three.

On composite are set to Matte Luma and click the reverse checkbox. And you can see there’s the effect as I scroll through it, I will play it back and there it is. And don’t forget, you could save your effect. Just isolate the black color matte that we had created and add the effects on it, export it out, bring it back into your project, bring it back into your timeline.

Make sure it’s the same size as your cut out. So we’re testing it right now. And there you go.

How to use a Track Matte From a Download

In another example, if you don’t feel like creating your track, matte, from shapes or creating your effects from scratch, you can download track mattes from a lot of places on the Internet. There are some sites that have free stock video and they also have effects and they may have track matte effects sites like Adobe Stock.

It will even tell you there is a track matte effect and sometimes it’ll say it’s Matte Luma or Matte Alpha. So when you download it you already know how to set this up. Just have two overlapping clips. Cut your clip at the length you want to transition, add your downloaded track matte to your project and bring it over onto your timeline and just make it the same size as your transition.

Make sure that it is all set right with your track matte key effect. And there it is already made for you. Just put in place. If you want more tutorials just like this, click on one of the videos on the screen now. If you haven’t already like share and subscribe and remember, it’s never too late to learn. Thanks for watching.

If you want to know more about my home town of Las Vegas Nevada click here https://www.redfin.com/blog/hidden-gems-in-las-vegas/

Read the previous blog article here ➡️ How to Color Match in Premiere Pro 2022

See my photography website here ➡️ https://www.charlescabreraphotography.com