Post-processing choices for time-lapse photography

- The final technical decision you need to keep in mind is how you're going to assemble all of these files. We often refer to this as post-processing, and you need to decide if you're going to do post-processing. It's possible with some solutions such as shooting on an iPad or iPhone, or even some cameras to produce a time lapse movie right in camera. However, to get the maximum professional quality results, I like to post-process. Typically this means you have to develop the actual image file, so you might use a tool like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, maybe iPhoto or Aperture.

Any tool that's compatible with your camera that can open up the images will allow you to process them. However, a very important feature that you're going to want to do is to have the ability to batch process. This means you could select multiple images and apply the exact same setting to all of them so you can properly develop those images and get a consistent look. Once you're done, you're going to need to assemble those files and this can be done a couple of ways. It's possible to just use a basic application like QuickTime Player even, to assemble the frames but most people turn to either a video editing tool like Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro, or better yet, a compositing tool like Adobe After Effects to make it easier to assemble.

We're going to explore the post-process fully at the end of this course, but it's important that you know your destination. Make sure the software you choose will work with the files your camera shoots. And the only way to truly do this is to actually do a test. So before you go all the way out into the field and hike up that mountain or get up at four in the morning to shoot a sunrise, do a real simple time lapse back in your office. Put the camera up on your tripod and just let it roll and do some test shots. Once that's done, open those files up into your applications of choice and make sure the workflow works.

Always test your workflow in the safety of your home or office before you go out into the field and you'll be much happier with the results.