applyFilter vs filters = [array] performance

Hello! I’ve been working on a project that uses a bitmapdata with a few filters applied to it. As my BitmapData is cleared at each step of an enterFrame event, I need to re-apply each individual filter to it using applyFilter. I was just wondering, is it less of a performance bottleneck to apply each filter only once to its containing Bitmap at the initialization, using bitmap.filters = []? I wasn’t sure if it made a difference, but I’m apprehensive about using the second method as I’d need to be drawing it to yet another Bitmap.

Also, side question - is there an elegant way to make all black pixels in a bitmapdata transparent without using Pixel Bender or iterating through every single pixel? Can’t get either threshold nor colormatrixfilter to work…