One of the biggest mistakes people make when removing black backgrounds in After Effects is simply changing the blend mode to Screen. While it works in some cases, it often makes the layer underneath look washed out and slightly transparent — which completely ruins the final composite. Instead, try this cleaner method that gives much better results. Here’s the exact workflow: ① Select your footage with the black background ② Apply Channel Combiner Set: ↳ From: Max RGB ↳ To: Alpha ③ Apply Solid Composite Place it below Channel Combiner and change the Solid Color to Black And that’s it — your black background is now converted into a proper alpha channel. Want even cleaner edges? 👇 Apply Roughen Edges and use: ⏱️ Border: 0 ✨ Edge Sharpness: 0.1 This helps remove those tiny black fringes that sometimes appear around the footage. Of course, there are plenty of plugins that can achieve similar results, and depending on your shot, Color Key or other techniques may work even bett...