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I'm trying to make a timelapse video. I do have all the shots (6500) and would like to make a short 30 FPS video (max 30 seconds). 6500 shots at 30 FPS makes a 200 seconds video more or less.

If I use fewer pictures I end up with frames containing people that appear only on single frames.

What I would like to do is to use all images and sort of blend them together, so that the person is visible on more frames.

For instance, let's say a set of 10 images. Dude1 is present on pictures 1-5 and dude 2 is present on pictures 3-10. My desire is that both guys are present in the same frame.

Also something like a "persisting frame" effect would be interesting, so that each frame is overlaid on the next frames for a fraction of a second.

Is there any software that can do this?

I'm on a PC.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Have you looked at photo.stackexchange.com/questions/21609/… and photo.stackexchange.com/questions/21089/… ? \$\endgroup\$
    – Olivier
    Commented Oct 1, 2015 at 8:05
  • \$\begingroup\$ yes, I have already seen those. the software that is used normally does not have the functionality I need. (virtual dub, etc..) \$\endgroup\$
    – sharkyenergy
    Commented Oct 1, 2015 at 8:26
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    \$\begingroup\$ I think you need to use something like ImageMagik (a command line program that can be scripted) to blend sets of 7 frames together into a single image, then you can use VirtualDub etc. to create the video. \$\endgroup\$
    – Matt Grum
    Commented Oct 1, 2015 at 10:18
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    \$\begingroup\$ I'm afraid the functionality you need isn't automatic : AFAIK, blending multiple pictures while keeping person A from image 1 and person B from image 7 has to be done manually, unless they are not moving (then for each pixel you could keep the more "frequent" color of the 7 colors from the 7 images... Of course the pictures have to be aligned). Anyway, Matlab can do all of that :) \$\endgroup\$
    – Olivier
    Commented Oct 1, 2015 at 17:49
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    \$\begingroup\$ @JPhi1618 One should be able to accomplish this relatively easily with any program that supports both layers and a fair bit of automatisation (e.g. After Effects with Extended Script). However, this question definitely would be suited best for video.stackexchange.com . \$\endgroup\$
    – flolilo
    Commented Sep 13, 2018 at 21:21

1 Answer 1

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This is a video question, let's see what is the future of it.

  1. Backup your photos.

  2. Resample them to a manageable size. I would batch resample them with a bit of sharpening using IrfanView. https://www.irfanview.com/ I would use 1920 px on the base. You can also crop it to a FullHD aspect ratio.

  3. Make a video. I would use Virtual Dub, http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/ probably using Xvid Codec or something similar https://www.xvid.com/. It takes the first numbered image and loads the rest as an image sequence. Set the framerate and save this as V0.

Some math

6500photos / 30fps = 216seconds

216seconds / 30seconds = you need to reduce it by 7

Then we have to do some decisions.

As you have plenty of images I would make a 60FPS video which would look nicer on youtube for example. But the trick is similar.

  1. On the framerate of virtual dub you can decimate the video by 2, 3 or x number. Let's say you choose to use a 60fps frame rate. You need to decimate the video by 3. Save this version as V1.

  2. Open V0 and drop the very first frame of it. Decimate by 3 again and save as V2.

  3. Repeat: open, drop 2 initial frames and save as V3.

Take a video editor that can use layered videos. One free is Davinci Resolve and another one is HitFilmExpress.

  1. Stack the V1, V2, and V3 with a transparency of let's say 33.3%

  2. Done. You have 3 images stacked on each other on a time-lapse video.

It would be interesting to play with different transparency to somehow simulate different "persistent images" More opacity to V2 and a small one on V1 and V3 or something like that.

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