CS3 Time Lapse

[Guy Godwin]

Hello,
I'm trying to make a time lapse video from 500 still photos.
When I pulled these photos into my time line all of my photos are separate. (Obviously)

Is there a method that I can use to speed boost them as is? I know how to do each clip. However, I don't want to have to manually select 500 pictures and change the speed. Is there an easy way?

I guess I can render them into one file and speed boost that one. But this is 45 minutes of footage and will take a while.

Please advise if you know a simple way.

Thanks.

[Battle Vaughan]

I'm assuming you want the duration of each frame to be less than the default? You can change this in Preferences > general >duration of still images setting before you import the stills. (I'm going by CS4, assume it is same in CS3).

Default is 150 frames duration per still in CS4, so you can speed up your timeline by making each image a much shorter duration.

[Guy Godwin]

That would work...
If I can just find Preferences now...

[Guy Godwin]

Found it.
Is there a way to change the size of the photos also?
These are all 2368x1328

I can't get the entire picture in the monitor.

[Battle Vaughan]

First, be sure "default scale to frame size" is selected in preferences >general.

Select "fit" under the image size in the program monitor, see attached

PPro will scale your images to fit the sequence setting of your timeline, but in some cases it seems to work out better to size the image closer to your sequence setting before you import. I've found anything larger than 2 times the sequence setting causes extra time in rendering, ymmv.

[Mike Sims]

I find what works best for me is to do the resizing in Photoshop. I write an action to do the resize and crop to the appropriate aspect ratio, apply any PS filters I like and output with a new file name to a separate folder. In Premier I then import the first frame, check the “Numbered Stills” box in the Import dialogue and Premier imports it all as a video clip for further editing.

[Donald McPherson]

Don't resize them to small if you want to pan and zoom.

[Battle Vaughan]

Thanks, Mike. I agree on the Photoshop step, as I think the down-resing that Premiere does leaves something to be desired, particularly if it's a large amount of re-size.

Guy, here's an alternative way of making your sequence, incidentally, using Quicktime Pro
QuickTime Player Help

Look under "quicktime pro basics"
for "creating a slide show from still images"

[John Wiley]

Guy, are you aware that you can import the stills as an image sequence that will work just like a video clip? That way any changes to speed, size, filters, etc can be applied to that single asset rather than having to do it for every single image on the timeline.

When you import, select the first image in the folder then click the checkbox down the bottom of the window that says "numbered sequence" or "import as sequence" or something like that. Of course this is dependent on all your photos being numerically ordered and within the same folder.

Your photos will now appear in your project browser as a single clip. You may need to change the frame rate though (right click > modify > interpret footage) to match your project or sequence settings, depending on what you have you default properties set to.