Time-lapse Tutorial Part 4: Post Processing and Distribution

1. Introduction and Planning
2. Equipment
3. Walkthrough
4. Post-processing, Presentation, and Distribution

This step is optional. If you plan to use an advanced video editor like Adobe After Effects, you can do your color correction and cropping there, otherwise it's much easier to do this in Photoshop.

Once you have your photos transferred to your computer for editing (if you're capturing and editing on the same machine then they're already there). Look through the images to make sure there's nothing in the folder but the images you want in your video. If you took test shots, delete or move them now. You can also look through the photos and pull any that didn't come out for any reason (maybe your dog, kid, significant other... walked in front of the camera).

Next, make a new folder in the folder with your photos. This is where your processed photos will be saved.

Now choose an image that will represent all of your photos and open it in Photoshop. I usually choose a photo from near the end of the shoot, especially if there is significant movement during the shoot. You will be basing your color correction and cropping n this representative image.

With your photo open in Photoshop, feel free to do a bit of editing to get an idea of what you want to do. Stick to global adjustments like levels, curves, hue/saturation, etc. and cropping. When cropping select the crop tool and set a width of 16 and a height of 9 for HD wide screen, or a width of 4 and a height of 3 for standard definition. Just be sure to undo everything before proceeding.

Now it's time to create your action. Make sure the actions palette is visible. If not, it can be found under window > Actions or by pressing Alt + F9.

In the actions palette, click on the "Create new action" button. Give the action a name you'll remember and click "Record".

Now proceed carefully through your color correction and levels/curves adjustments. If any.

Crop your photo to either 16:9 or 4:3.

Choose Image > Image Size (Alt + Ctrl + I) and under pixel dimensions, set the width to 1920 for HD or 640 for SD and click OK.

Sharpen your image. I use Unsharp Mask with Amount: 90%, Radius: 1.0, Threshold: 0 as a starting point. Your image may need more or less sharpening.

Now use Save as (Shift + Ctrl + S) and save the image as a jpeg in the folder you created earlier.

Do not rename the photo.

Now close the photo, but not the Photoshop application window.

Finally, click the Stop Recording button in the actions palette.

Now go ahead and check the photo you just saved. If it looks right %u2026 delete it! Don't worry, your action is saved at this point and next you will apply that action to all of the photos.

Back in Photoshop, with no photos open, Select File > Automate > Batch...

Under Play, choose the set containing your action, and choose the action you just made.

Under Source, select folder from the drop down menu, click on choose, and select the folder containing your images. Leave the boxes unchecked.

Under Destination, leave the drop down menu set to None.

Click OK and sit back as Photoshop processes your images. Depending on the speed of your computer, and the number of photos, this may take a while. When the batch process is complete, you may quit Photoshop. Check your processed images to make sure they came out as expected.

Continuing from the previous section, I'll start with the Photoshop > Premiere Elements method, then I'll discuss After Effects.

I started out with Adobe Premiere Elements 3, which was a great piece of software. It took a few steps to set it up for time-lapse, but it certainly got the job done. Later versions have changed a bit. Here, we'll use Premiere Elements 7, the current version.

First, in order to work with HD video, you must adjust the project settings. Open a new project, give it a name and click on the "Change Settings" button. Select the "NTSC-AVCHD-Full HD 1080i 30" preset. Click OK and enter your project.

Next, you will need to set the "still image default duration" to 1 frame. This setting can be found at Edit>Preferences>General...

Now you can import your images. Click on PC Files and Folders, then select all of your photos at once an click OK.

Use the drop down menu to sort your files by oldest first. Next, select all of the photos at once and drag them to the timeline.

Here's your first chance to preview your movie! Just press play and you can watch your creation come to life!

Now it's time to export your movie. Choose File>Export>Movie...

In the export settings dialogue under the General tab set the file type to "QuickTime". Under the Video tab set Compressor to "Photo-JPEG". Set your frame size to 1920h by 1080v and the frame rate to either 29.97 or 30 fps. Pixel aspect ratio should be set to "Square Pixels (1.0)" and quality between 95% and 100%.

Click OK. Thats it! Your video will take a few minutes to render, then you have a finished master video! You can open this video in QuickTime and use File>Export... to convert it to many different formats including mpeg-4, flash (.flv), H.264, etc...

Earlier, I recommended erring on the side of a shorter interval. This may result in a clip that is longer than desired. If this is the case, simply re-import the master clip into Premiere and use the time stretch feature to shorten the duration and speed up the clip. Then export the clip again.

When using Adobe After Effects, you can import all of your images at once as an "image sequence". You can then add adjustment layers with color correction effects over the image sequence. You can even animate the image sequence layer to create your pan or zoom. After Effects is a very complicated program that relatively few people have access to, so I won't give a step by step. It would probably be too simple for those who own the program. If there is interest, however, I could write a short tutorial on my method.

Now that you have a finished time-lapse movie, you probably want to show it off. You can use your video editor to burn a copy to DVD to show friends and family, or use Quicktime Pro to create smaller versions suitable for uploading to YouTube. But why not make a little money from your effort?

There are several websites that specialize in distributing video clips like yours as stock footage. Each site has it's own requirements and review process, but they all love time-lapse. I'll list a few of the sites I have worked with. Please consider signing up with my referral link, so I can keep writing tutorials like this one.

Istock

I am currently an exclusive video contributor to iStock. I've had a chance to meet a bunch of the guys who run the video side of iStockphoto, and I have great confidence in the future of this site. iStock is owned by Getty Images.

Shutterstock

Shutterstock, like iStock, started out distributing stock photography before moving into video. Shutterstock and iStock get a lot of traffic and sell a high volume of clips. If you're just starting out these are the top two sites, in my opinion.

Pond 5

I really like the concept behind Pond 5. They offer a high percentage of sales to contributors, and they let you set your own price. Unfortunately, they receive less traffic than the other sites listed. If you decide not to go exclusive at iStock, however, there's no reason not to contribute to all three.

Whichever route you choose, visit the site and sign up first. It's free, and then you can get access to their forums. Each site has it's own way of doing business, it's own advantages and disadvantages. The forums are the place to learn the ropes. Feel free to ask questions, there are lots of helpful people on all of these site's forums. Once you get comfortable, start submitting, and selling, those time-lapse clips!