How to make a timelapse in CS5

Azure

Azure

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Hello Folks

Could anyone please walk me thru how to making a timelapse for uploading to youtube (or wherever) using CS5?

Say around 200 shots or so...

Basically, one big orange poppy, opening up throughout the day with a busy bee who didn't wanna wait for the pollen so kept sneaking in under the petals.

I'm still shooting but can't stay outside (achoo sneezing x a million!)

Would anyone know how to do maybe 10 frames per second... a quick and easy way?

(had a quick look thru under "timelapse" search but didn't get an answer I could understand :bonk:)

Many thanks

Moi!
 
Have you got ImageReady to make an animated gif?
 
Hi there

I'm not sure what I've got to be honest!

It took me a couple hours to figure out how to convert x100 shots from raw to tiff as a batch in the sony software (converting raw thru CS5 does not produce the same quality <loose term> image)

I then imported and blah on a 1 frame per second which was OK - just a little choppy....

then tried to import thru scripts and stacking each image numerically in it's own layyer with automatic align - even on a brand new laptop which mega RAM etc etc etc... it hung half way through aligning

so...

once figured, it's easy enough to do the timelapse which is over about 6 hours and then render the video - did this twice - once as a quicktime .MOV which then will NOT go into Windows moviemaker to add music as appararently it's the incorrect format and I don't have the right codec...

gosh - why doesn't anything just work first time :bang:

so...

all in all... something that should take 6 hours to photograph - has taken me (because I'm noob to all this processing stuff) about 8 hours to process... and still I don't have what I wanted to set out to do

mightily frustrating.

Think I will just upload to youtube and see if I can add some blah music from there



there just has to be an easy way to do this

I would buy Quicktime Pro because that seems to tick the boxes - but I don't know if loading music is easy, whether you can upload that to youtube without probs... but also, some of the reviews don't read too well

ALSO - any shots that are in portrait mode do not realign to landscape :gag:



hmmmmmmmmm... :thinking:

any advice would be appreciated on the simplest way to do this

6 hour timelapse
with music
upload to youtube / picasa / photobucket

many thanks for your comments.

(and yes yes yes, I know I may be being particulary dense here :bonk: but hey, still smiling and did enjoy watching a poppy give birth ;) <achoo> )
 
Azure said:
gosh - why doesn't anything just work first time :bang:
Click to expand...

:lol: I often scream that!
I've only got older versions of Photoshop and Imageready comes with those, so I'm guessing that you do have it.

It might be worth trying to build your animation in there, importing that and your soundtrack into Windows Movie Maker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ3Gk5UuQbo
Not a tutorial, just me checking that it works in theory.


There might well be an easier way though :thumbs:
 
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If you have After Effects as part of your CS5 use that to import the images as a sequence. I haven't done it for a while so the exact steps escape me now, but if you oepn AE and go to import it should hopefully be labelled clearly enough to stumble your way through.
 
I'm currently doing a time-lapse of my new reception area being built - see the first week of construction here: http://vimeo.com/23717315 (shots done with a Canon 5D @ 1 min intervals), bit I didn't use PS. I used Proshow Gold. Its just a simple process of importing the shots into it, setting the frame rate and using PSG's export to youtube/Vimeo facility.
 
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Hello Folksies

So, long and short (I never do short)

I've given up trying to figure out CS5 - no matter what I do I can't export it into anything readable in Movie or DVD maker and the .avi I saved looked awwwwwwwwwwwwful on photobucket...

so, imported all the shots into DVDmaker and uploaded to youtube - minimum that you can do is 1 fps on and I really wanted to have 3fps - so had to delete a load to make it fit some music

it's not how I wanted it to be - I can picture what I wanted but I just can't seem to get there and after 6 hours the poppy decided it was a little tired and opened up today when I was zzzzzzzzing :p





[youtube]uiibpk5ATts[/youtube]

<for a friend who needs a better day!>

Poppy... The Sequel will be getting the poppy to open completely :D


new2me said:
:lol: I often scream that!
I've only got older versions of Photoshop and Imageready comes with those, so I'm guessing that you do have it.

It might be worth trying to build your animation in there, importing that and your soundtrack into Windows Movie Maker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ3Gk5UuQbo
Not a tutorial, just me checking that it works in theory.


There might well be an easier way though :thumbs:
Click to expand...

thank you new2me :) - have persevered but just couldn't get it to work for me - thank you tho - heh, have a headache now from :bonk: I've made a lot of vids in the past on youtube and reckon I'll stick with Movie and DVD maker at the mo as it'll just frustrate me further trying to figure any more out - but will have a look at the suggestions below in a little bit.

Richard Peters said:
If you have After Effects as part of your CS5 use that to import the images as a sequence. I haven't done it for a while so the exact steps escape me now, but if you oepn AE and go to import it should hopefully be labelled clearly enough to stumble your way through.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I don't have AE - have the Teacher and Student Edition CS5 but will take a looksee at AE on the www. Thanks Richard :)

Metal God said:
I'm currently doing a time-lapse of my new reception area being built - see the first week of construction here: http://vimeo.com/23717315 (shots done with a Canon 5D @ 1 min intervals), bit I didn't use PS. I used Proshow Gold. Its just a simple process of importing the shots into it, setting the frame rate and using PSG's export to youtube/Vimeo facility.
Click to expand...

ohhhhhhh... that's too cool - lovin' that David - again, will look up Proshow Gold and see what's what - can you add music to that? Thank you


:thumbs:
 
Azure

Not sure if this may help http://www.tucows.com/article/2058

Also check out tutorials on Vimeo - there are some which are very good and they show differing techniques for different styles of time lapse.

On Vimeo they tend to suggest using Quicktime Pro (they tend to be Apple Fanboys on Vimeo!) - I've used this and found it to be very, very simple - easy to import, export and change the frame rate.

Do you have any other video editing programs? For instance in Premiere Pro it is also very simple to import pictures - you need them all in one folder (and numbered sequentially), when you hit the import button a dialogue box appears - click the first picture and tick the box 'Image Sequence' or something like that (it will be obvious when you do it.

I'm just starting to play around with time lapse and no way an expert but a few pointers;

1) Use jpg (unless there is a definite need for RAW) and use the smallest quality setting - this will still be greater resolution than HD video.

2) Change from 3 x 2 format to a wider format (better for video)

3) Play around with a longer exposure (not sure if this would work on your subject but it works well with people). This will make it more blurred and less jittery.

4) There are plenty of free programs to change format of your video if needed, such as Format Factory.

Hope you find something that works.
 
take a look at photodex proshow gold, I think you can download a trial version.
 
You can also use QT pro, its very easy. You just select "open image sequence" from file menu and select the first photo then set the FPS, it automatically knows which are in sequence and makes the time-lapse. I made this one at the weekend using 3k stills on my d300.. Not the most exciting subject for most people - car washing!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sZOmH6Ansc
 
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The way I've done it in the past is use PS to batch process the images into a sequence of the right size and named sequentially (say pic0001.jpg..pic0200.jpg) and then use ffmpeg (command line program) to convert it to an avi like:

ffmpeg -r 3 -i pic%04d.jpg -b 2400k -vcodec flv out.flv

The number after the -r is the frames per second you want and the number after the -b determines the quality (this is saying a 2.4Mbit/sec stream). Of course, if you're averse to command lines this may not be a sensible option, but it is certainly quick (once you've figured out how to record aand what to put into an action to apply the effects you want to all the images in PS)!
 
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Azure said:
My friend died yesterday - he's no longer in pain or suffering, so for him a better day arrived. I will miss him.
Click to expand...
Just re-reading the thread and just saw this. Sorry to hear that :(
 
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