How to Create an Inverse Matte

[Simon Silverstein]

I am using an imported clip that hides a colored matte I placed under it, not changing the surrounding black of the clip that I would like to have in color. I would therefore like to place a colored matte over the clip and then "cut a hole" in the matte, as one would do for matting a picture. In this way, the video image would show through and be surrounded by color. I know how to to this in Photoshop via the Inverse command when selecting. But I can't find out how to cut this hole in Premiere Elements. Please advise.

[Dave McElderry]

If I'm understanding correctly, your imported clip already has a black matte around it, and you'd like to replace that black matte with a different color. Here's how I'd do this. Place the matte of the color that you want on the timeline below your clip. Apply the Crop effect to the clip (NOT the Clip effect) and adjust the left, right, top, and bottom of the Crop effect until your black matte is gone and the new color matte is replacing it.

[Simon Silverstein]

Sorry if I was not totally clear, but the situation is not exactly as you indicated. What I have is an old 4:3 movie surrounded by a black area in a 16:9 frame. If I just reduce the movie, the whole thing reduces, including the surrounding black frame, which is opaque, not transparent.
Since my original post, I have been doing some experiments, and I have resolved the issue, although I'm not sure it's the best solution:
1. Create a colored matte in the track under my movie video from Add Media. Select my movie video on the Timeline
2. In FX Effects, choose Keying, then the Four-point garbage mask, and drag it into my movie video track (not the track with the mask below).
3. Go to Applied FX Effects: a box with handles appears in the screen monitor. Adjust handles carefully so the box accurately is at the observed edges of my movie. What this does is "crop" away the black areas around the movie track, thus allowing the colored matte in the track beneath to show through.
4. Render the clips.
This method works, but, as I said, I don't know if it the most efficient way of doing this.

[Dave McElderry]

i don't know how this differs from what I described Simon. The Crop effect will crop away the black part of the 4:3 video and allow the matte beneath to show through. To me that's the simpler method, but it's whatever works for you and gets the job done.

[Simon Silverstein]

What distracted me was that I perceived I didn't have a matte around my own video but merely a black surround.
Also, I was not quite sure how to do a crop. I looked cropping up and then tried it. It seems easier and less clunky than the Four-point Garbage Matte method I described above. Thanks much for your suggestion, Dave.

[Dave McElderry]

Technically it may not be a matte, but the program does treat the empty space around the 4:3 video as an opaque black matte. Glad you got what you needed.