Lightroom Timelapse
Update: Please note that Lightroom 5’s Slideshow module has been changed and a new preset is here: http://lightroom-blog.com/2013/09/17/timelapse-again-in-lightroom-5-2/
A while ago I published a Lightroom Preset and Template set to create timelapses on Lightroom News. I also put a video on YouTube about it:
We’re now up to version 3 of these presets/templates. They can be used to create 23.97/24/25/29.97/30 fps 720p Movies, by matching the Slideshow Template the Video Preset.
To install these presets:
Download and unzip the file below. Open Lightroom Preferences (Edit>Preferences on PC, Lightroom>Preferences on Mac). Click the Presets, then click ‘Show Lightroom Presets Folder”.
Open the Lightroom Folder. Drag the Video Presets folder into this.
If you already have Slideshow Templates made, then open your Slideshow Templates/User Templates folder. Next drag the Templates from LRB Timelapse/Slideshow Templates/User Templates into it. This is to avoid accidentally erasing any templates you’ve already created.
To use these Presets:
Make a collection for the images you want in the timelapse, organised by capture time. Apply the Template for the framerate you require. Click Export Video and choose the matching Video framerate for your Slideshow. Name the file and then press return.
The output file will be a 720p file with the chosen framerate. If your current media player does not play the file, try VLC from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Is there a timelapse olugin for LR4 in 24fps
Anders
Help please this used to work with lightroom 3.6 but i have upgraded to 5 and i can’t get to work anymore 🙁
If you’ve read any on my Lightroom 5 posts, you’ll see this has been mentioned a few times. It’s even on the LRBPlugins blog: Lightroom 5 has a new Slideshow engine that breaks sub 1/10 sec duration and video presets that are not 30fps. It will also crash if you try and make a timelapse with greater than 50 frames. There is no solution in Lightroom 5 bar use another program.
It worked
I cannot copy the slideshow templates and video templates from the zip to lightroom folder!!Helpp!!!!!!!!!!!!
Expand the zip file, rather than copy from it still zipped. Make sure you restart Lightroom after the move to see them.
Thanks!!!
I’ve nothing in the presets to do that. On my system it adds a black frame at the start, even without the intro selected. I’ve made a bug report on that. No fades though.
Hi Sean, another question for you…
Does the preset apply a fade to the beginning or ending of the file set? It seems that once compiled, the fist and last 20 images or so are affected. Is this right? and is it configurable? If so I may just drop in 20 blank jpg’s at the front and back of the sequence…
Thanks Sean, that was the solution. Downloaded with Firefox then WinZip was able to unzip the files. Very much appreciate your help. Will play with this over the weekend.
Cheers, Phil
Have you tried a different browser? I’ve just downloaded them & unzipped with 3 different apps here.
Sorry should have mentioned that 7zip also does not work. Error message that the files are protected. I assume it thinks they are password protected the same as WinZip. I can unzip your other presets ‘headofred’and ‘lrbdragan’ no problem.
Great work by the way. The tutorials and the blog are very helpful.
Having the same problem as Byron. Asking for a password to unzip on Windows. Tried Keith’s solution of copying straight from the zip but does not copy the files. I can see the files in the folders, I can copy the folders but the individual files are not copied across.
Does anyone have any other suggestions as I really want to have a play with this and only have Windows PC’s?
So did you try 7Zip as I’ve already suggested?
Sean, I appreciate the presets, very nice and works great for me. Can you advise on how I can modify the presets to whatever framerate I want? Say I wanted to double the playback time, I would have the 24 fps to 12. How could that be accomplished?
Is there a template creation screen or GUI somewhere?
thanks very much
Malcolm
There isn’t really. 12fps would look very jittery anyhow. Keep in mind 24fps is about the lowest video rate used. I’ve exported 15fps bits from Quicktime and they don’t look great.
I had to dig around inside Lightroom to do it.
Thanks Sean, but already tried multiple browsers. But this got me thinking so I tried using the built in archive support of Windows Explorer in Windows 7 and it actually was able to ‘copy’ the folder/files from this archive by simply browsing inside the zip file, but my actual zip program (PowerArchiver 2010 Pro – v11.64.01) can open the contents of the zip file, but cannot extract any of the files contained. So if anyone else has problems, perhaps try doing what I did.
Hmm. No ideas, I zip using BetterZip on Mac, which produces Windows compatible zips (without all the Mac crud inside them).
These sound great but unfortunately when I try to unload the zip file after download, it asks me for a password for the sip file. (I’m using Windows)
Byron, that usually means it didn’t download properly. Are you using the default windows zip? Try 7Zip if you still have issues.
Thank you for making these available! Unfortunately I’m getting a CRC error when extracting this file. I’ve cleared my cache and downloaded 3 times, but so far no luck.
Try a different browser perhaps?
I would hope that you know you have a worldwide audience. Given that, would it not be a bit more prudent to articulate what you are saying a bit more clearly?
My English is pretty good, I think. However, I do have a different native accent than yours. I have lived and taught in the US for over 25 years. Yet, in places, I find your narration impossible to follow.
Just a friendly suggestion.
DId you get paid for those 25 years of teaching, Mr Cafe? Enough said.
Very interesting piece of software !! I’m going to test it asap !!
Any update planned for a 1080p support ?
Yes
I have a problem – lrtimelapse.zip when i extract -> cannot create folder…
very cool thank you
Thank you for these presets. Downloading them now. Will probably save a lot of my time.
Thank again for the time you’ve put in this. I’m following your RSS for a very long time now and will stick around some more. There is a lot of room for resources like your blog around Lightroom. This software is great, full of undocumented details, and photographers won’t stop needing improvements in their process anytime soon (neither than new camera bags).
So keep up the good work.
Hi,
That is a great preset, but there’s one thing I keep wondering about. How much time should it normally take to export a timelapse? Here’s my example: I shot 973 JPEGs 2816x1880px size. And it took me about 3-4 hours to export the timelapse. Is this normal? Actually Lightroom seems to be struggling a lot with such a huge library and it seems that it takes much longer just to export one of these images (JPEG to JPEG) than it usually takes to export some other image from RAW to JPEG or TIFF. Could the problem be that my HDD RPM is too low? I know that for better performance LR needs a 7200 RPM HDD. But does it make such a huge difference?
And another thing. Is it possible to add a title at the beginning and some credits at the end of the timelapse on a black background within LR? And meybe even make the movie fade it/out from/to black?
I hope you find the time to answer these questions. I’m especially worried about the first one.
Thanks!
How long is a piece of string? On my hardware it varies. Long enough to just ignore it and let it happen, but probably less than 15 minutes. Lots of things affect it. Processor power, RAM quantity, speed of drive, how much space you have left on the drive (virtual memory).
You can’t really add a title directly, because the slide time is too short. It would last 1/24 of a sec. If Lightroom had timeline support it would be an option, but it doesn’t.