time lapse video

[TDoodle]

Mom sent me here.

A little back story....I posted this on a different forum....
(May 22, 2013) I don't want to bore you with the back story, but I am doing a time lapse video. I am taking a picture of the same thing everyday for about 110 days straight. I want to see the change of the season. But the thing is that I can't put it on a tripod (I can't leave it there; it will be in the way), so I am going to the spot and taking about 15-20 pictures (BTW, I have kept the settings all the same). But the question I have, is when I have the 100+ pictures, how can I get them all cropped to the same size, so the target (the building) in the picture will be all in the same spot? So when I put all the pictures together, the building doesn't jump around by a few millimetres.......THIS I NOW KNOW HOW TO DO (from eirik...his site is in the next paragraph)

(July 8) I have about 50-55 pictures now. About half way through. I am trying to get it 'started' to see how it will turn out. But I am having trouble with the dissolves in Final Cut Express, and in Adobe Premiere Pro (trying it out in trial mode), I emailed that Erik (the timelapse video tutorial guy eirikso(dot)com/2008/12/27/one-ye...mazing-videos/ ---Sorry, I'm not trying to spam the place, but the forum won't let new users to insert links, but I want to you see what site I was using) and he replied once, then I had a couple more questions, then he never responded back. I can't get the dissolves to work.

Reason why I am now trying Premiere Pro is that I know a videographer that works for inFisherman and he told me that he uses APP. Can someone give me a pretty thorough walk-through to start in APP. From the right 'settings' to click to get started to getting the dissolves to work.

I never realized that this would be this difficult, haha, but if it turns out in the end, I think it will be well worth it

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

The tutorials on Lynda.com are highly rated. You can find a link from Muvipix to the Lynda website.

Also you might find what you seek on the Creative Cow website where there is a lot of info on most of Adobe's video and image editing software.

http://www.creativecow.net/

[momoffduty]

Hi TDoodle and welcome. Glad to see you found your way to Muvipix on my recommendation.

I've been thinking about your project and trying to come up with the fastest & easiest way to handle the stills. Since you are undecided on an editor here are few things to consider.

Premiere Elements: This editor has a create slideshow feature. You would bring in your folder of stills and set the duration of each still and can add a cross dissolve set to its own duration. There would only be one track of video for this procedure.

Premiere Pro: I'll look at my program and see if there is the create slideshow feature. If not you could add the cross dissolve to each and this could be time consuming. Depending on your editing needs Premiere Elements is a fraction of the cost and has many features and is a less learning curve than Premiere Pro.

Final Cut Express: You mentioned this editor to me elsewhere. I am not familiar with this program, but there are others here that use this editor and may know if there is a create slideshow feature.

In the Tut for the Still a Day, his screen shot has the stills overlapping and if you did this then you would end up the number of tracks as you do stills and may have to keyframe the fades in and out.

The first thing that needs to be resolved is which editor are you going use for the project. After that we can help you with the alignment which can be done in Photoshop.

If anyone has any ideas for TDoodle's project please jump into the conversation.

Cheryl

[Bob]

Exactly. This is basically a photo slideshow with a shorter than normal duration for the photos with a long cross dissolve transition between photos. As such, it can pretty much be done with most video editing programs. If using Photoshop CS6, he could even do it all there using the video editing capabilities.

If using Premiere Pro, create a sequence with the same properties as what you want to export. Edit>Preferences>General and set the default still image duration and the video transition default duration to the desired values. Import the photos into the project. Select the photos in the project panel and click on the Automate to Sequence button on the bottom of that panel. Make sure the apply default video transition box is checked. The cross dissolve will be default unless changed. If the photos are named in order, you can select sort sequence for the order option. That's pretty much it. Make any final adjustments or additions, add your sound track, and export the video.

[momoffduty]

Thanks Bob for the info. I figured there had to be an easy way in PrPro if Premiere Elements could do it. If he lines things up in PS, I was thinking you could create guides on the first photo and bring in the others one by one and use those guides? Not knowing the photos, maybe a tree or two and the horizon for the the vertical & horizontal guides.

[Bob]

It's much easier than that. Import the images as layers in the same file (there is a script for this -- load files into stack). Select all layers and Edit > auto-align layers. Works great. I think auto-align layers has been around since CS4.

[TDoodle]

Premiere Elements: This editor has a create slideshow feature. You would bring in your folder of stills and set the duration of each still and can add a cross dissolve set to its own duration. There would only be one track of video for this procedure.

Premiere Pro: I'll look at my program and see if there is the create slideshow feature. If not you could add the cross dissolve to each and this could be time consuming. Depending on your editing needs Premiere Elements is a fraction of the cost and has many features and is a less learning curve than Premiere Pro.

Final Cut Express: You mentioned this editor to me elsewhere. I am not familiar with this program, but there are others here that use this editor and may know if there is a create slideshow feature.

The first thing that needs to be resolved is which editor are you going use for the project. After that we can help you with the alignment which can be done in Photoshop.

Cheryl

I will use whichever that will be easiest for me to do this since I'm all new at it. I am on the trial version on Premiere Pro

Exactly. This is basically a photo slideshow with a shorter than normal duration for the photos with a long cross dissolve transition between photos. As such, it can pretty much be done with most video editing programs. If using Photoshop CS6, he could even do it all there using the video editing capabilities.

If using Premiere Pro, create a sequence with the same properties as what you want to export. Edit>Preferences>General and set the default still image duration and the video transition default duration to the desired values. Import the photos into the project. Select the photos in the project panel and click on the Automate to Sequence button on the bottom of that panel. Make sure the apply default video transition box is checked. The cross dissolve will be default unless changed. If the photos are named in order, you can select sort sequence for the order option. That's pretty much it. Make any final adjustments or additions, add your sound track, and export the video.

I'll give that a go, I read it, it doesn't make sense until I open PP and do it.

It's much easier than that. Import the images as layers in the same file (there is a script for this -- load files into stack). Select all layers and Edit > auto-align layers. Works great. I think auto-align layers has been around since CS4.

That was the first hurdle I encountered, and got it done. It is now the video editing. I have figured out how to import the pictures and change the duration of the stills, I just can't get the cross-dissolves to work

[momoffduty]

Before you import your folder of stills, did you do what Bob posted?

Edit>Preferences>General and set the default still image duration and the video transition default duration

[Bob]

A little more information would be nice.

What exactly is not working with the cross dissolve transition? What do you expect it to do and what is it actually doing?

How many photos do you have in the sequence?

How many seconds long is it supposed to play?

What values did you specify for the default still image duration and the video transition default duration?

[TDoodle]

I haven't attempted any more at this since I asked 3 months ago. But I thought I was gonna be done taking pictures around Sept 4. But I was asked to stay up at the lodge longer, I am still taking pictures (just checked I currently have 148 pics....1 a day), And I will be still taking pictures for about another 5-6 days. I am on the home stretch. Just about done. I have been at the lake since May 14, working everyday (I had 2 days off in that time) How come there is no emoticon for sleep? lol Anyways, when I get home from the lake in a weeks time, I will FINALLY get to start working on it. Hoping to have it all the way done and able to upload to youtube by Nov 1. When it is done, I will post it here so you can see it.

[Chuck Engels]

How come there is no emoticon for sleep?

There are a few but you have to really look through the list to find them

[momoffduty]

Looking forward to the video.

[TDoodle]

Here we go ,
I finished the video.....
This is my first attempt at a time-lapse video. For it being my first one, I am pleased with the way it turned out

Let me know what you think.....

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMT818jtZ68[/youtube]

[momoffduty]

Great job on lining up the stills! Interesting to see how the seasons change. How many stills did you have? And what duration for each? Thanks for posting back the end result.

[Dave McElderry]

That was neat! I had to watch it several times because I found myself concentrating on just a particular part of the scene. The last 10 seconds were really dramatic.