This is the simplified, shorter basic tutorial for LRTimelapse without Lightroom Classic.
You will learn how to edit your timelapse using LRTimelapse only:
- keyframe your images
- edit them with the internal editor in LRTimelapse
- calculate auto transitions
- work with Visual Previews
- deflicker
- export and render your timelapse.
Once you mastered this workflow and want to add the power of Lightroom Classic to your editing, check out the Complete Basic Tutorial with Lightroom.
Feel free to test the free version of LRTimelapse with your sequences up to 400 images. If you like it, you can find different licenses in the shop.
I also recommend my EBook Timelapse Photography – 480 pages that will teach you how to get the best results – from shooting to perfect editing!
- Download LRTimelapse 7 beta
- Information about the beta and all new features
- LRTimelapse Newsletter
- LRTimelapse on Instagram
- LRTimelapse Forum
You will find direct links to the video chapters in the YouTube description of the video.
Transcript
Hey everyone! Welcome to the shorter version of my Basic Tutorial, without the Lightroom section. If you don’t use Lightroom, this is the tutorial for you.
For those new to LRTimelapse, I also recommend starting with this simplified workflow. Once you’re comfortable, and have practiced it a few times, feel free to check out the complete Basic Tutorial linked below to add the powerful Lightroom editing to your workflow. This will make your learning experience much smoother.
In this shorter Video you will now learn how to define and edit keyframes in LRTimelapse, apply “holy grail” compensations if needed, automatically calculate all transitions and deflicker your timelapses. The result is a super-smoot final video. Enjoy!
Getting Started with LRTimelapse
First of all, each time-lapse sequence must be stored in a specific folder. A folder with a time-lapse sequence should not have any further subfolders.
In the settings, on the “Folder” tab, you can configure the folders to be displayed in the tree. It is advisable to store the parent folders under which your time lapses are located here. This increases performance and makes things more organized.
Select a folder in the tree to load the sequence into LRTimelapse.
Time-lapse sequences can consist of raw, dng or jpg files. The working method is the same for all these file types. However, the quality of the result and the processing speed is highest with raw files, so you should use these whenever possible. Conversion from Raw to Dng is not necessary and is usually counterproductive.
You can play your time-lapse directly after loading using the preview in the top right-hand corner. This is of course still unedited.
Metadata
On the right there is a table with so-called metadata. Metadata is information about the images, such as exposure time, aperture and interval.
The editing steps are also displayed as metadata in the table, here for example the exposure correction “Exposure”.
The highlight of working with LRTimelapse is that all edits are first calculated virtually and only applied to the images in a single development process at the very end, when the video is output.
This lossless processing is one of the great advantages of LRTimelapse – it makes it possible to create time-lapses in unique quality.
Analyzing the brightness
When we play back the sequence, we can see that the light changes during the recording. The blue curve shows this brightness progression.
Workflow Buttons
The workflow buttons are located at the top of the screen. These buttons simplify working with LRTimelapse. Normally, you simply go through them from left to right, so you always know exactly what to do next. If you hover over a button with the mouse, you will see an explanation.
Let’s start with the Keyframes Wizard.
Keyframes Wizard
Keyframes are the images that we are going to edit later. If you click on the Keyframes Wizard, you will get a suggestion for the number of keyframes, but this is only a rough guideline. You can easily change this number by moving the slider.
To determine how many keyframes you need, simply look at the sequence and identify where you see significant changes. In this case, I think we will need one keyframe at the beginning, one in the middle and one at the end. So in this example we’re going to have three keyframes created.
If you need more, you can either use the slider or create keyframes manually by activating the keyframe icon on the left of the table. Another option is to press the “1” key when an image is selected.
Holy Grail Wizard
Next comes the so-called “Holy Grail” wizard. This is intended for sequences that you have recorded using the “Holy Grail” method.
This method has proven to be useful for recording day-to-night or night-to-day transitions. The time-lapse is recorded as normal in the camera’s M mode, and the exposure time and ISO are then adjusted as required when it gets dark. This can be done manually or with the help of an app such as qDslrDashboard. There is a separate video from me on this.
Adjusting the camera exposure in this way during recording inevitably leads to a jump in the brightness curve. Multiple readjustments lead to a zig-zag curve. The Holy Grail Wizard automatically compensates for this and makes appropriate corrections to smooth the sequence.
The Holy Grail Wizard cannot be activated for sequences that were recorded without manual readjustment of the camera, as it is not required in this case.
Saving Metadata
Now save the editing steps you have carried out as metadata.
The images are not yet finally developed, but all processing steps are written to so-called XMP files. LRTimelapse communicates with the raw converter or Lightroom via these files.
Visual previews for keyframes
While the undeveloped camera previews are displayed in blue, the developed visual previews are displayed in pink. This applies to the icon in the workflow bar as well as to the luminance curve in the preview. You can switch between the camera previews and the visual previews using the “Visual previews” button.
The pre-development of the keyframes allows you, on the one hand, to roughly see the later brightness curve of the developed sequence and adjust it if necessary. On the other hand, if you don’t want to use Lightroom, you can now edit the keyframes directly with the internal tools of LRTimelapse.
The Internal Editor
The internal editor in LRTimelapse uses the same tools as Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw. For simple edits or corrections you can therefore save yourself the detour via Lightroom, the results are the same.
Finer adjustments to the edits can be made using the +/- buttons.
Once you have finished editing a keyframe, you should transfer the settings of the edited keyframe to the next keyframe as a starting point so that you only have to make modifications there.
Do this until you have edited all keyframes from left to right.
The 2nd workflow row in LRTimelapse
LRTimelapse has already developed the freshly edited keyframes so that you can get a first impression.
You can use the arrow buttons below the histogram to jump from one keyframe to the next, alternatively with Ctrl Arrow Up / Down (Mac: CMD Arrow Up / Down).
The new pink curve now shows the brightness progression of the already developed images, the so-called “visual previews”.
The yellow curve shows the values of the “Exposure” tool – both previously only on the keyframes.
At this point, I check the brightness curve of the keyframes using the pink luminance curve, for example. If necessary, I can now make changes to the brightness by adjusting the exposure. Here you can see the brightness curve much better than in Lightroom.
Auto transition
The next step is to calculate automatic transitions for all images between the keyframes. To do this, click on “Auto transition”. LRTimelapse now calculates the developments for all images between the keyframes and briefly displays the resulting curves.
If you want to see the curves again, you can display them using the “ALL” button. The colors of the curves correspond to the headings of the table columns. Only curves and columns for actually animated tools are displayed.
Visual previews
LRTimelapse now automatically creates visual previews for the entire sequence. Unlike camera previews, these visual previews have now been developed with your edits. When you play back the sequence, you can judge whether it is already perfect or whether additional changes are required.
If you play the sequence after creating the visual previews, you can judge whether it is already perfect or whether additional changes are required.
Deflicker
The sequence is often not completely smooth, but shows a so-called “flicker”. You can see this during playback, but also on the pink curve, which is not completely smooth.
LRTimelapse can completely remove this flicker.
To remove the flicker perfectly, it is advisable to set a reference range for the calculation of the luminance curve. This reference area should cover a part of the image that is not affected by natural, desired changes in brightness, but instead shows the flicker as isolated as possible. This is often an area of the sky. If there are clouds passing through quickly, then alternatively an area where less “desirable” changes occur.
The aim is to see the flicker as isolated as possible in the luminance curve.
You can set the reference area by clicking and dragging on the preview. You can delete the area again by double-clicking. After releasing the mouse button, LRTimelapse recalculates the luminance curve.
Apply the visual deflicker
Now activate the visual deflicker.
Use the smoothing slider to set how much the luminance gradient should be smoothed.
If this slider is set to zero, the target curve will follow all unevenness and there will be no deflicker. The higher the slider is set, the smoother the curve becomes.
The aim is to find a setting that smoothes out short-term flicker effects but maintains medium and long-term changes to the luminance.
You can either choose a single deflicker pass or a multi-pass deflicker that makes two or more passes to gradually remove the flicker. In this case, we will perform a double multi-pass deflicker and then click “Apply”.
LRTimelapse will now calculate the deflicker for images that deviate from the green curve; perfectly aligned images will not be recalculated.
With multi-pass deflicker, several passes are made, with the pink curve getting closer and closer to the ideal green line. Fewer images need to be recalculated with each pass.
Lossless
All these calculations are lossless, which means that you can perform as many deflicker passes as you like without affecting the quality.
This is because all adjustments are initially only calculated as metadata. They are only applied once when the video is finally exported and rendered. This gives you a video of the highest possible quality.
Workflow indicators in the tree
On the left-hand side of the tree you can see so-called “workflow indicators”, which show you which steps you have already carried out on a sequence. Here you can see, from left to right, the symbols for keyframes, the Holy Grail Wizard (if applicable), the auto transition, the deflicker with the number of passes and whether a sequence is already finished and has videos assigned to it. You can access these videos later via the right mouse button / Show rendered videos.
Final check
Now you can play your time-lapse again to make sure that everything looks perfect.
You can detach the preview window for a larger view to better assess the preview.
Export and Render
Exporting and rendering are two processes in LRTimelapse:
When exporting, the images are finally developed and all processing steps are applied to the full-size image files.
The result of the export is a so-called intermediate sequence with developed image files (JPG or TIFF).
This intermediate sequence is then rendered, i.e. converted into a video.
The reason for this split is that the time-consuming export process only has to be run through once. However, various video files can then be created from the intermediate sequence in different resolutions and with different post-processing.
Internal Export & Render
Click on “Export & Render (internal)” once at the end of the workflow.
You will be asked for a superordinate output folder – this should not be the folder of the original files, but a separate folder, e.g. “Timelapse Finished”.
The render dialog will now open in “Export & render current sequence” mode.
Render dialog in LRTimelapse
Now you can make the settings according to which your video should be rendered.
LRTimelapse offers some presets at the top left. These are also useful if you are not yet familiar with the video settings in detail. You can of course adjust these presets if necessary or add your own.
For example, you can use the first preset to output a standard Full HD video at 29.97 frames per second. This preset uses the common H.264 compression algorithm. Videos that you create with this preset have maximum compatibility with any output device.
Render options
Basic settings such as the video encoder, dynamic range, output size and quality as well as the frame rate are made on the left.
In the top center you can see the folder in which the intermediate sequence is located and the automatically generated file name. This is updated according to the settings you have made.
On the right there are some settings for post-processing.
For example, you can set a crop in a freely selectable aspect ratio here. You can use the slider to move the crop and you will see a corresponding rectangle in the preview.
Another very useful edit is “LRT Motion Blur” to add motion blur and smooth the sequences once again. Neighboring images are blended. A setting of 5, for example, means that 5 images are blended. This produces a beautifully smooth result and also reduces noise.
You should always adjust the motion blur settings to the content of the time-lapse. With fast-moving timelapses or pans, settings that are too high can lead to ghost images – in this case, you can simply render the video again with a different setting.
Higher motion blur settings, the addition of watermarks and timestamps are reserved for the Pro license.
Click on “Render” to output the final video. The rendering process is displayed in the batch processing list at the bottom left of LRTimelapse and runs in the background.
Once the rendering process is complete, the video file is displayed in Explorer or Finder.
Re-rendering an intermediate sequence
You can use the “Select” button to return to previously exported cutscenes at any time in order to render them again and try out different motion blur settings, for example. Of course, this also works with intermediate sequences that were created via the internal export.
Exported intermediate sequences always start with the prefix “LRT_” and are displayed in blue in LRTimelapse.
If you hold down the Shift key when clicking on “Render”, the render dialog will not be closed and you can immediately start the next render process.
The exported video files automatically contain information about the render settings in the file name so that you always know which settings you have used and files with different settings are not overwritten.
Final Words
I hope this video helps you to get started with LRTimelapse. I would appreciate a “Like” if it has helped you!
You can find more videos on my YouTube channel. It’s best to subscribe to it, because new videos are always being added with lots of tips to help you get better and better at working with LRTimelapse.
If you have any questions, visit the LRTimelapse forum. Many other users write and read there and I am there every day to answer your questions.
