Abstract: A method and apparatus to cause a colored backing to be replaced by a background scene, such that the composite scene shows no loss of detail, no edge anomalies, no evidence of a colored backing having been present, and no evidence that the final scene is a composite, even when the foreground scene contains fine strands of hair, glassware, smoke, fog, or other semitransparent subjects. Control signals E.sub.b and E.sub.c are created to cause the foreground and background scenes to mutually interact in a natural manner, so that shadows on the colored backing appear as shadows on the background scene, and the luminance of the background selectively causes back and edge lighting of foreground subjects. The hue and luminance of the colored backing are continuously and automatically tracked and removed by a subtraction process. The background level is automatically held constant even though backing illumination changes.