Williams Process
An early traveling-matte compositing method patented by Frank D. Williams around 1918. Actors were filmed in front of black, and the resulting mattes let them be placed over separate backgrounds.
Spot it
- 01Subject floating over new background
- 02Dark halo around edges
- 03Slightly mismatched lighting
Why it happens
A high-contrast black-and-white matte copy of the subject is made from footage shot against black; it blocks out a hole in the background shot so the two are printed together.
Recreate it in Pixio
Image edit prompt“Composite this image in the style of a Williams-process traveling matte: the foreground subject cleanly separated and placed over a slightly different painted background, faint dark outline around edges, flat mismatched lighting, grainy black-and-white film, and a subtle ghosted halo. Keep the original subject and composition.”
Open PixioUpload your image and pick an image-edit model.