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I own a Nikon D700, which has in-camera support for taking time-lapse photos, but I need advice on the easiest and best software solutions for processing the resulting heap of images. I accept that the best software may not be the easiest, and vice versa. Open-source would be great, but I'm open to commercial solutions as well. I've tried Picasa's movie-making feature, but found it to be kludgy and missing many useful options. What do you recommend?

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15 Answers 15

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If you are on a Mac, one of the best ways is using Automator, which you can use to do basic cropping/editing and conversion to video (although this part usually requires Quicktime Pro).

There is a good walkthough here: How to Make a Time-Lapse Video from Stills

Also, a great open source solution is to use ffmpeg, but it is a much more technical path to take, so keep that in mind. There are lots of examples out there.

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    \$\begingroup\$ "as simple as one command" is relative. If you have no experience with that sort of thing, figuring out a command like ffmpeg -i %03d.jpg -r 15 -croptop 180 -cropbottom 180 -s hd1080 -vcodec libx264 -vpre hq -crf 16 rollins_1080.mp4 (example command for turning set of time lapse images into a movie) might be near impossible \$\endgroup\$
    – davr
    Jul 24, 2010 at 4:40
  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks, I will try ffmpeg. Fortunately, I'm comfortable with the commandline, and those options look like exactly what I was looking for. \$\endgroup\$
    – Naseer
    Jul 30, 2010 at 19:09
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    \$\begingroup\$ It can be as simple as ffmpeg -r 30 -i _DSC%04d.jpg timelapse.mp4 for 30fps, although I like to have ffmpeg resize my frames to 1080p frame size so I use ffmpeg -r 24 -i _DSC%04d.png -s hd1080 timelapse.mp4 and obviously get 24fps (-r). \$\endgroup\$
    – Mark K Cowan
    Jun 23, 2014 at 1:04
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    \$\begingroup\$ +1 for ffmpeg, it's a bit techy but masting that and Imagemagick / mogrify opens up a world of possibilities that many commercial gui-driven packages want to charge you big bucks for. Being able to batch-process photos with a few simple commands is awesome. \$\endgroup\$
    – John U
    Jul 26, 2018 at 9:50
  • \$\begingroup\$ quicktime solution doesn't work anymore with newer quicktime version (I'd love to be wrong about that, though), plus the first link leads to a sketchy website every other time I click it. \$\endgroup\$
    – arturomp
    Mar 5, 2019 at 16:30
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You answer lies in Lightroom and this free software plugin for lightroom http://lrtimelapse.com/

NOTE: this will only work for free for short timelapse segments. Anything over 400 images requires a license.

The great thing about using lightroom for a timelapse is that you can easily crop,edit thousands of images with a simple click. You can then make a slideshow.

Here is a blog post that shows how to install the slideshow video templates for lightroom:

http://forum.lrtimelapse.com/Thread-how-to-install-the-slideshow-and-video-templates-free-and-pro

If you want to take your timelapse photography a step further you can make gradual changes and deflicker the timelapse within lightroom with the lrtimelapse plugin.

LRTimelapse will take your movies to the next level. It allows you to continuously change Adobe Lightroom or Camera RAW development parameters over the time enabling sort of key-frame animations like in video-processing. The great advantage over post processing in your favorite video production software is the way higher quality of pre processing on a RAW-file basis. Of course you can work with JPG as well.

Examples and use cases

  • Alter white balance and other parameters over the time (for example for sun sets)
  • Make the "Holy Grail" - (day to night transition) easy peasy
  • Deflicker Make Ken-Burns effects (pan/zoom) Fade in / fade out
  • Continuously saturate / desaturate
  • and many more...
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  • \$\begingroup\$ Thats some slick software. \$\endgroup\$
    – rfusca
    Jun 21, 2012 at 17:23
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    \$\begingroup\$ Note that the free version is limited to 400 stills. Non-free is 89€ ($118 USD at the moment). \$\endgroup\$
    – tyblu
    Jan 5, 2013 at 2:36
  • \$\begingroup\$ thank you for this new information. At the time I posted this there was no limit in the amount of stills you could use. \$\endgroup\$
    – xtarsy
    Feb 7, 2013 at 9:10
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    \$\begingroup\$ Good answer, but OMG!... that thing is expensive. \$\endgroup\$
    – Seamus
    Nov 26, 2019 at 18:17
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For Windows, you can use VirtualDub. It is free and open source.

To create a timelapse, you need all of your photos numbered in order, without any gaps in the sequence. Then just go to File > Open, and pick the first image. VirtualDub will then load all of the images.

To set the frame rate, go to Video menu > Frame rate. You can also add filters if you want to change the output video, on Video > Filters. If your photos are higher resolution than the output you want, you can use a resize filter. You can also use filters to crop if you don't want the whole frame.

You can set the compression on Video > Compression. The options available will depend on what codecs you have installed. You can just use uncompressed format, then use other software to compress it as required.

Then to save the video, use File > Save as AVI.

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    \$\begingroup\$ You could also install DivX (there is a free version that will suffice) and it will become available in the list of compressors in the VirtualDub compression dialog. DivX is basically a variation on MP4 and most players that support MP4 will also support DivX. Could avoid the extra compression step if that is an issue. \$\endgroup\$
    – Octopus
    Sep 12, 2013 at 19:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ Thank you @Octopus, with this it is a lot easier and faster to make sharp and large video. \$\endgroup\$
    – vee
    Feb 23, 2019 at 16:46
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Ha. Nobody mentioned free windows alternatives.

I've been using windows live movie maker with good results. It is as simple as dragging your pictures into the timeline, selecting them, setting a time for each (24 fps is around 0,04 seconds per picture) and exporting :)

(It auto-adds black vertical bars to your 3:2 or 4:3 aspect ratio pictures if you export to 16:9 HD video, but you may prefer cropping them beforehand. I've used image magick for windows for batch cropping - add a comment if you want more details about this)

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm not sure if a blog post would be appropriate for this kind of work. Information on the web is sort of spread out. I'm available for that :) \$\endgroup\$
    – JoséNunoFerreira
    Jun 20, 2012 at 15:04
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'd love to see a blog post on timelapse ....pop into the chat and we can discuss. \$\endgroup\$
    – rfusca
    Jun 20, 2012 at 19:12
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'll be home in about 4h, will do! \$\endgroup\$
    – JoséNunoFerreira
    Jun 21, 2012 at 16:28
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Try Time-Lapse Tool Software for Windows. It provides lot of featuries such as:

  • Zooming and panning your frames
  • Add soundtrack to movie
  • Render your movie to different video formats or publish to YouTube
  • Easy to apply image effects
  • Free Community Edition available

(Note: I am affilated with Timelapse Tool.)

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    \$\begingroup\$ This looks like spam to me, are you connected to Timelapse Tool in anyway? \$\endgroup\$
    – Håkon K. Olafsen
    Aug 15, 2013 at 10:30
  • \$\begingroup\$ It depends that do you consider as spam. This is an answer to the question. This tool works wery well to build timelapse movies. So give it a try. And yes, I'm connected to this tool. \$\endgroup\$
    – AiDevs
    Aug 15, 2013 at 10:47
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    \$\begingroup\$ Have a look at the last topic in photo.stackexchange.com/help/behavior - Quote: "Post good, relevant answers, and if some (but not all) happen to be about your product or website, that’s okay. However, you must disclose your affiliation in your answers." \$\endgroup\$
    – Håkon K. Olafsen
    Aug 15, 2013 at 11:08
  • \$\begingroup\$ Håkon, missed this point, sorry. I noticed that Paul added information about this. Please give a try to the our app and let me know if you find it useful (or not) \$\endgroup\$
    – AiDevs
    Aug 15, 2013 at 11:45
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    \$\begingroup\$ @AiDevs Where may I find the community version, please? I have found only a free version on the timelapsetool.com website which has a limited resolution of the resulting video ("DVD" resolution only, not even HD). \$\endgroup\$
    – David Ferenczy Rogožan
    Nov 10, 2017 at 15:14
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Avidemux is a good tool for this purpose. Open source, free.

It is the easiest. Just open the first image from the folder in which you have the sequence. It automatically populates the rest for you! Then you have to export it as video.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ This does not work for me (maybe different version? I am using Linux if that matters). It only opens the first image and I have to add the others one by one. Is there an option somewhere to add multiple images at once? \$\endgroup\$
    – luator
    Mar 5, 2016 at 16:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ I have heard that the latest versions have issues with jpg demux. It would say jpg demux is not found. Try using an older version. It could solve the issue. \$\endgroup\$
    – Pixelgrey
    Mar 27, 2016 at 16:21
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Personally I find that using Adobe Premiere Pro to make timelapses is best for me. It offers super flexibility titles audio and the ability to mix in true video. Additionally you can create faux pans if you import your images larger than your video resolution.

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You could try Blender, it is open source but personally I think there would be a learning curve for it.

It also has video editing capabilities so if you aren't able to fork out for the commercial offerings it could be alternative for you.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I'm too dumb to get Blender to make time-lapses for me. How do you do it? \$\endgroup\$
    – tyblu
    Jan 5, 2013 at 2:37
  • \$\begingroup\$ @tyblu, see: youtube.com/watch?v=T05BCYZPkpc \$\endgroup\$
    – inkista
    Mar 28, 2016 at 5:47
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You can also use Panolapse. It supports:

  • Panning
  • Zooming
  • Deflicker
  • Autoexposure
  • Fisheye lense

It is free for resolutions up to 1280x720.

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Use VideoVelocity if you need to record video over long periods of time, reliably. You can also broadcast the time-lapse as it's recording to Teleport for online viewing, private or public. Great for project promotion.

VideoVelocity also does mass stitching of stills into high quality H.264 or HEVC/H.265 video files. And performs de-flicker on the frames to minimize light variation effects from frame to frame. You can also speed up existing video files easily. You would then use a video editor of your choice for post processing.

It is free for non HD resolutions.

Disclosure: I'm affiliated with VideoVelocity

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I am adding my 2 cents here.

This task is a 3 step process.

1) Just mergin the frames into a video.

I am not sure, but I think all the programs listed here are just simple editing programs that merge this.

2) Controlling the framerate.

You need to see if this options listed here can do that. On this part I would go for virtual dub (as someone already has)

3) Adding motion blur. Here is a quantum leap.

Although the primary goal of this software is to do the inverse than time lapse (slow motion) On this open source project there are some tests to smooth a timelapse: http://slowmovideo.granjow.net/videos.html

The comercial options are twixtor and kronos: https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/plugins/kronos/ The company that sells twixtor has another plug in called, well Motion Blur. Probably this will help too on this case. http://www.revisionfx.com/products/rsmb/

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If you're looking for a free app on Windows, I ended up using the Photos app that ships with Windows 10. It's a bad name for a product because it replaced Windows Movie Maker, but it was super simple to do a time-lapse after. Simply import your images, drag them onto the storyboard, then adjust the duration.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Can you adjust the duration for all of the images at once? If you have hundreds of photos, it is rather annoying if you have to adjust it for each one. \$\endgroup\$
    – vclaw
    Sep 15, 2019 at 11:53
  • \$\begingroup\$ @vclaw yep! I just hit Ctrl + A and then right-clicked one of the images to bring up the context menu. \$\endgroup\$
    – senfo
    Sep 15, 2019 at 14:32
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Good free tool from Microsoft Store

10Lapse

Easy to use, nice result. Some time converting fails, but whatever.

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I've been having good luck with Sequence (for Mac):

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sequence/id572525913?mt=12

I've so far only used its more basic capabilities.

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im just starting with timelapse photography as well and since ive had past experience with adobe products I found that after effects work really good and straight forward and if you are shooting raw lightroom is perfect for batch editing them before after effects.

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