Hi everybody,

I'm posting something very strange I found today. I shot a hyperlapse video and I edited it. The thing is that the original sequence was shot in RAW format and there is no flickering at all. It is just perfect. Once I imported and initialized the sequence in LRTtimalpse and made a transition in the exposure I finally added a 50% clarity in Lightroom and the outcome has some sort of strange flickering. I thought that the sequence had some minor flicker and tried to render it out without the clarity effect applied and I noticed that there is no more flickering. So I'm thinking how can I solve this problem and why it appears. I'm using Lightroom 4.4 and Lightroom 5.
Here is a link to a preview video split in two in the middle. On the left side is the clean video without clarity applied and on the right side is the same video with clarity applied. You can clearly see that there is flickering.

[Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1Ip6gxM_Bw]


Here is also a screenshot so you can see my curve in the LRTimelapse. The jumps that might look like flicker are people crossing in front of the camera, because as you can see from the video on the left side there is no flickering at all.

[Image: http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2822/10410...03be_b.jpg]


Please share your thoughts and possible solutions. If somebody knows why this is happening and how can be possibly solved it will be much appreciated. Or if I can't used this effect is there any way to recreate it in After Effects for example. I know that basically the Clarity effect is a midtone contrast adjustment.

Hope that you can help me with this issue.


regards
Stefan

This post was last modified: 2013-10-22, 10:34 by Gunther.

Hi Stefan,
this is pretty normal when using "dynamic" effects like clarity to a certain extent. Lightroom applies it to each single image in a non-linear way, so slight changes in the image might lead to different results from the clarity, introducing what you call "flicker". Even deflickering a sequence that you processed that way in a second step would not help, because of the non-linearity of the clarity. The same goes for other non linear tools like highlight/shadows etc - even if it might not be that strong.

If you experience that effects you have to take down the slider that causes it, there is no other solution. There are other ways to get the contrasty look you want, just use the blacks and whites slider, highlights and shadows. Just don't overdo it with each single tool.

Thanks for the detailed answer it really makes sense. Will find another way to achieve the look I'm going for. Thanks again!