Green Sprite (green screen keying)

The classic green screen remover for pixel-art sprites: green background out, hard edges in — no scaling.

Summary

Green Sprite is the standard profile for cutting out green-keyed pixel-art sprites: it removes the green background globally and gives you a clean, hard pixel-art edge (alpha 0/255, no resampling). It's the app's first and simplest chroma-key profile, and the right starting point when green is only the background and not part of the subject.

When to use it

• You've got a sprite or sprite sheet on a pure green background (#00FF00 or a similar key color) and you want to cut it out.
• The subject itself contains no green you need to keep — the global green test is free to remove everything green.
• You need hard pixel-art edges with no soft half-transparency.

When not this profile:

• Green is also a subject color (e.g. green pixel lettering on a green key) → Green Sprite (hard, content-safe), which removes only edge-connected green.
• Already cut out, only green residue left at the edge → Residue Repair.
• Translucent glow effects (glow/smoke/sparkles) → FX / Glow (Soft Matte).

How it works

Green Sprite detects the background by green dominance (green is the strongest channel) and removes those pixels across the whole image — whether they sit at the edge or in the interior. That makes it simple and robust for classic sprites, but it's also exactly why it takes subject green with it (that's what the hard, content-safe profile is for).

Optionally, an Edge cleanup tidies the thin fringe left behind after keying:

• Green Black Outline Repair repairs dark/olive-green outline pixels that the green background contaminated — distance-limited, so it never reaches the inner sprite colors.
• Green Magic Outline Repair removes small green/cyan residue at magic/effect edges without touching larger turquoise subject areas.

Settings

Recommended settings by use case:

CLI / Automation

The same cut-out runs headless for scripts and batch loops — invocation, the positional input output arguments, and the shared key flags are in the CLI overview. You pick this profile with --profile green (operation chromakey is the default).

Relevant flags (mirroring the sliders above): --key-color (Key color), --edge-cleanup {on,off} (Edge cleanup), --spill-radius 1–4, --spill-strength {conservative,normal,strong,maximum} and --green-repair {off,soft,normal,strong} (Green repair).

Example:

clean_sprite_chromakey.py sprite.png sprite_out.png --profile green --green-repair normal

FAQ

Why does subject green (lettering, plants) disappear too? Green Sprite works globally via green dominance and doesn't tell background green from subject green. If green is part of the subject, use Green Sprite (hard, content-safe) — it removes only the edge-connected background and leaves enclosed interior green standing.

Does the profile scale my sprite? No. Chroma-key works pixel-exact and never changes the resolution. Shrinking/enlarging are their own operations (UnDetail, Pixelize, Asset Slice).

My cut-out sprite still has green speckles — does Green Sprite help? No, that's what Residue Repair is for (it works on the already-transparent image). Green Sprite keys an existing background but doesn't repair finished cut-outs.

Limits

• Subject green is removed too — that's intended (global key). For mixed green, the hard profile is the one in charge.
• Soft gradients / anti-aliasing: Green Sprite gives hard edges (0/255). For translucent glow/smoke effects with soft alpha, FX / Glow is the right profile.
• No scaling / no resampling — a deliberate invariant of the chroma-key flow.

Examples

Green-screen background removed — the content stays, transparency shown as a checkerboard.

Related features

• Green Sprite (hard, content-safe) — only edge-connected green removed, subject green stays.
• Residue Repair — clean up green residue on already cut-out assets.