How to replace a background without the person going softer than the original
Tell Vizard Agent the person looks softer than in your original. It compares face crops from the original and the composite at the same moments and checks whether the size changed. If the person's pixels came from a re-compressed cutout, it rebuilds the composite with the original footage as the picture and the cutout used only as the mask.
What do you type into Vizard Agent?
Say that the background swap is fine but the person lost sharpness compared with the original. That tells Vizard Agent where to look: not at the new background, but at which file the person's pixels are coming from and how many times they were compressed.
Why doesn't the video have its original sharpness anymore?
What does Vizard Agent actually do?
It separates the shape of the person from the picture of the person. A background-removal tool returns a cutout that is itself a compressed video, so using it as the visible layer means the face has been compressed twice. In the session behind this article it:
- Pulled frames at three moments from the original and the composite, and built side-by-side face crops with enlarged views of the eyes and glasses.
- Checked that both files were the same 540×960 size, so scaling wasn't the cause, and found the person's pixels came from the cutout tool's compressed video.
- Rebuilt the composite with the original footage as the picture and the cutout used only as the transparency mask, keeping the edge softening chosen earlier.
- Rendered at a higher quality setting and compared original, previous and fixed crops at the same timestamps, including the hair.
- Confirmed the softened shoulder edges survived and delivered. The user had no further complaint.
When does this not work well?
When the original itself is soft or heavily compressed. Taking the pixels from the original can only bring back the detail the original had. Sharpening on top helps a little, but it can't recover detail the camera never recorded, and pushed too far it draws halos around the hair.
Common questions
Did the background swap blur my face? Often the cutout did. Vizard Agent uses your original pixels.
Will the edges still blend? Yes. Vizard Agent keeps the edge softening on the mask.
Is it the export settings? Sometimes too. Vizard Agent compares crops at the same moments.