Blog and latest News

LRTimelapse and Adobe’s recently announced new Masks Feature

Posted on 2021-10-04 by Gunther Wegner

Hey guys,

Adobe just announced a major change for the upcoming versions of Lightroom and Camera Raw which is a complete redesign of the gradients and paint brushes that we currently know. They call it “Masks 2.0”.

If you haven’t seen it, check out their announcement on the Adobe Blog or watch the short video they already released:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLVaLkFPPEA

 

According to Adobe this is the biggest structural change to the Lightroom engine since years and I subscribe to that.

And of course, this will also have effect on LRTimelapse. After all, LRTimelapse makes extensive use of Gradient adjustments – not only by animating the gradients that you use for your timelapse editing, but also by utilizing hidden Gradients for certain types of internal adjustments, like the Visual Deflicker and the Holy Grail Wizard.

Fortunately I had early access to betas of the new Lightroom, and so I could already work on this in the last months. It was challenging, because I had to cover many scenarios: not only the editing of new sequences with the new Masks, but I also wanted to allow the reediting of old sequences by migrating the old gradients to the new masks. And last but not least, I wanted to maintain compatibility with older Lightroom versions even though I heavily recommend to use the latest Lightroom Classic – the performance for timelapse editing is so much better in comparison to the old Lightroom 6.

I cannot disclose too many details yet, but I wanted to assure you that I have found solutions for all of the challenges mentioned above and will be publishing LRTimelapse 5.7 with support for Masks 2.0 on the same day Adobe publishes the new Lightroom Classic (estimated on October 26th, 2021).

The transition for you will be easy: In the same step where you upgrade your Lightroom you also upgrade LRTimelapse to 5.7 and the Adobe DNG Converter. Then you need to go to the LRTimelapse settings and set the Mask Mode to “2.0”. That’s it.

I will also be releasing a Video tutorial on the whole topic where I will show and explain more details – also how to reedit sequences in the old format and convert them to the new Mask version.

Personally, I think it’s great to see Adobe putting so much effort into our favorite Raw Converter to provide us with new and more powerful tools – even if that means a lot of work for me.. 😉

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!

Tagged | 35 Comments

LRTimelapse 5.6.3 is ready for download!

Posted on 2021-09-25 by Gunther Wegner

Hi guys, after quite some time in public beta, LRTimelapse 5.6.3 is now ready for you to download!

This is what’s new:

  • Tiff intermediary sequences exported without color profile (for example from After Effects) could not be loaded into the render dialog. LRT 5.6.3 will now assume that such sequences are in sRGB and properly process them.
  • Deleting predefined Gradients or beginning a workflow in Lightroom (still not recommended) could lead to a metadata error in Lightroom. This should not happen anymore, but still please remember not delete any predefined gradients. Just use the provided ones and leave those that you don’t need alone.

    If you have a sequence that shows a metadata error in Lightroom proceed as follows:

    • Remove the sequence from Lightroom.
    • Go to LRTimelapse, load the sequence, do “Auto Transition”, hit Save.
    • Now “drag to Lightroom” to add the sequence there again. The issues should have gone.
  • Redesigned “New Version” dialog.
  • Some UI Tweaks in Licensing Dialog and Log-Dialog.
  • Added some missing localizations to the Render Dialog.
  • LRTExport: Improved detection and correction of wrong “Path to LRTimelapse” in the LRTExport plugin.

Please download the new version from the download page. If you have a former version of LRTimelapse 5 installed, there is no need to uninstall first. Just run the new installer it will update the old version.

If you have any questions or feedback, please leave them in the forum!

PS: Do you know my LRTimelapse Expert Tips videos? Check them out, if you haven’t – those are valuable tips that will help you to get your work done in a faster and more efficient way! I’m currently working on new ones, that’s why it might be useful to subscribe to the LRTimelapse Youtube channel!

All the best
Gunther

Comments Off on LRTimelapse 5.6.3 is ready for download!

Please update – LRTimelapse 5.6.2 brings an important fix!

Posted on 2021-09-04 by Gunther Wegner

I’m sorry, but I needed to fix a bug introduced with LRTimelapse 5.6.1.

  • Auto transition could set some date/time fields in the metadata to the date/time of the first image. Thanks to LRTimelapse user Greg Priestley who found this and reported it in the forum.
    When loading a sequence that was affected by this, LRTimelapse 5.6.2 will also fix the issues and require you to save the metadata (first column will be red after loading to indicate that a save is required). After saving you can do “read metadata” in Lightroom for the whole sequence and the Date/Time metadata will be correct again.

Please update as soon as possible, especially if you are on 5.6.1 now!

LRTimelapse 5.6.2 is a free update for all LRTimelapse 5 users. You can download it on the download page. Just install it over your old version. No need to uninstall first.

Tagged | Comments Off on Please update – LRTimelapse 5.6.2 brings an important fix!

LRTimelapse 5.6.1 available for download

Posted on 2021-08-25 by Gunther Wegner

Hi guys, after more than a month in public beta, I’ve now released LRTimelapse 5.6.1.

This is what’s new:

  • Internal redesign of Metadata handling and correction in order to improve the detection and correction in difficult editing situations.
  • Cached previews in the Render dialog will now get updated if the exported intermediary sequence changes for example due to a reexport. The update will happen, when reopening the render dialog and when changing the position of the scrub slider.
  • Removing images from a folder or deleting images would always trigger a refresh of the directory chooser, which could cause a lag on some systems. Now if only the number of files in the directories change and not the structure, only the counted number will be updated not the whole directory chooser.
  • Initialization in LRTimelapse could set a wrong color profile for some cameras causing a color shift in Lightroom. LRTimelapse will from now not initialize the color profile anymore but leave it to Lightroom to set it.
  • LRTimelapse also won’t initialize the White Balance anymore to fixed values but leave it to Lightroom, to set those values according the the preferences set in the camera.
  • Increased font size on notification Dialogs.
  • Ctrl-Cursor Down/Up will now also respect Ken-Burns Keyframes (5*).
  • By default LRTimelapse will now count the images from 1 (like Lightroom) – you can change it in the settings, if you want it to count from zero (as in After Effects).
  • Fix: Sometimes the “to save” indicators didn’t get updated.
  • Fix: Smooth column is hidden again.

You can download the new version on the download page. If you have a former version of LRTimelapse 5 installed, there is no need to uninstall first. Just run the new installer.

If you have any questions or feedback, please leave them in the forum!

Tagged | Comments Off on LRTimelapse 5.6.1 available for download

New Expert Tips Tutorial Available: the right way to do “Ken Burns” Crop animations

Posted on 2021-08-19 by Gunther Wegner

Hey guys, I’ve just published a new episode of my LRTimelapse Expert Tips Tutorials. This one will be interesting for all of you that want to do Crop-Animations (Ken Burns Effect) right in LRTimelapse.

The key here is to learn how to animate the Crop independently from the other Lightroom edits.

You’ll find the new video and all other episodes of the LRTimelapse Expert Tips here:

Expert Tips

Make sure to subscribe to the LRTimelapse Youtube channel for new videos about LRTimelapse!

Tagged , , | Comments Off on New Expert Tips Tutorial Available: the right way to do “Ken Burns” Crop animations

LRTimelapse 5.6 available!

Posted on 2021-06-02 by Gunther Wegner

Hey Guys,

LRTimelapse 5.6 is a bigger update which is free for everyone that has a LRTimelapse 5 license. Also, of course, there is a free evaluation version.

In LRTimalapse 5.6 the UI has been fine tuned on many places, the UI scaling now uses the native OS scaling on both platforms (the scaling factor in the settings is gone) – this allows a much better overall user experience on high and low dpi displays and a cleaner and slicker user interface.  All Icons now scale nicely that means you’d get a much better look and sharpness on high dpi screens.

Loading Visual previews that already have been created is now much faster (in fact 5-10 times faster on licensed versions, depending on how many cores your processor is providing. As always, the free version is limited to 4 threads in parallel – that means with a high performance computer you get a massive performance boost, if you buy a license.

I’ve also worked on the Long Term filters, they are now faster to operate.

There have been many other smaller improvements and fixes that you can find below.

Continue reading →

Tagged | Comments Off on LRTimelapse 5.6 available!

LRTimelapse 5.5.8 update available for download!

Posted on 2021-03-21 by Gunther Wegner

Hey guys, I’ve just released LRTimelapse 5.5.8 with some improvements!

  • New Feature in Menu: Edit/Select images without Visual Previews – will help to identify any images that don’t have Visual Previews (for example because of file corruption). In the next step you can then use the “Remove Images” feature from the context menu on the table to remove the corrupted images.
  • New option in settings to set the volume of the “Ding”-Sound.
  • Mac: Detection of another LRTimelapse instance could fail on older Mac OS. Fixed.
  • Shift Timestamps dialog a was a bit too small on 4K displays.
  • Changed download links to Adobe DNG Converter to https://lrtimelapse.com/install where you will find the latest links to Adobes Site.
  • Some Cinema DNG files without preview would make LRTimelapse freeze on loading, fixed.
  • Multi-Selection was enabled in the folder trees of the Importer but didn’t do anything, disabled it now.
  • Updated ExifTool and ffmpeg.
  • Updated Signatures on Windows and Mac.

Please find the download for LRTimelapse 5.5.8 on the Download page. Just close Lightroom and run the installer. Should you have any questions, let me know in the forum.

All the best and stay healthy,
Gunther

Tagged | Comments Off on LRTimelapse 5.5.8 update available for download!

A filmmaker got stuck in Manila during lockdown and made a beautiful timelapse film.

Posted on 2021-03-18 by Gunther Wegner

Martin Arnaldo, a filmmaker and LRTimelapse user that was traveling the world got locked in Manila and produced an amazing timelapse film which truly tells a story about feelings that many might have experienced in a similar way in the last year.

The difference is, that he had a stunning location with a magnificent view which allowed him to shoot the whole film right from his apartment using different focal lengths and techniques.

When Martin sent me the film, I instantly loved it. I asked him if he would be willing to publish the film here on LRTimelapse.com together with a guest post with some explanation about the process. I’m more than happy that he agreed!

Continue reading →

Tagged , | 20 Comments

LRTimelapse 5.5.7 update available for download!

Posted on 2021-01-15 by Gunther Wegner

Hey guys, I’ve just released LRTimelapse 5.5.7 which fixes and improves a couple of things.

Especially the Keep-in-dock-behavior on Mac is now finally back to normal. Also with the Keyframes Auto-Reload you might be able to save quite some time in your workflow from now on, see below.

  • Mac: “Keep in dock” should now work as expected. You might need to undock and redock, but then everything should work fine without the icon doubling anymore.
  • Keyframes will automatically be reloaded when doing the auto transition. In many cases, when you plan to do the auto transition anyway, you can therefore now omit clicking on “Reload” and save some time.
  • In some cases the automatic reload of changed images in visual preview mode failed. Fixed.
  • “To Save” indicator in the left column did not get updated when applying individual transitions. Fixed.
  • Decreased the minimum size of the render dialog a bit, to facilitate usage on monitors with smaller resolutions.
  • Added keybord mnemonics to buttons in render dialog. The keys are underlined on the buttons an can be activated together with Alt Key (Mac: Option Key or Ctrl+Option).
  • Setting Manual Workflow selection would not be properly saved. Fixed!

Please find the download for LRTimelapse 5.5.7 on the Download page. Just close Lightroom and run the installer.

All the best and stay healthy,
Gunther

Comments Off on LRTimelapse 5.5.7 update available for download!

Stop Lightroom from adding Contrast Flicker to your Timelapses

Posted on 2020-12-14 by Gunther Wegner

Some popular tools in the Lightrooms Basic Panel (Shadows, Highlights, Contrast, Clarity, Dehaze etc.) act in a non-linear, context sensitive way and can introduce severe contrast flicker, color shifts and other artifacts to timelapses which are impossible to remove afterwards, even by LRTimelapses powerful Visual Deflicker.

The probability for this to happen is the higher the less smooth your original sequence is.

In this video we’ll analyze why this happens, which Lightroom tools are fine to use, which should be used with care and which should be avoided at all with such sequences.

As always: the better your source images are, the less you would suffer from such problems.

But these tips will help you to better understand how Lightroom works and edit even difficult sequences perfectly.

Make sure to have watched my Basic Tutorials first, before digging into these more advanced Expert Tips.

https://youtu.be/xb6UZsUEpSI

 

I’m already preparing the next tutorial videos and will not always write a blog post. Therrefore please subscribe to my youtube channel and leave a thumbs up for the video, if you like it!

If you haven’t yet, make sure to check out my 10 Years of LRTimelapse Anniversary Video.

You may also want to follow me on Instagram and Facebook. Thanks!

Tagged , , | Comments Off on Stop Lightroom from adding Contrast Flicker to your Timelapses