Hi,

I'm quite new to LRTimelapse and I've been learning how to use the Holy Grail Wizard properly. I know it's quite self explanatory and intuitive as a wizard (great job on the software!) but I have an issue I can't seem to resolve.

Here's the clip in question: https://vimeo.com/78803761

Basically the problem is that when I use the wizard to match the exposures, and I look at the 2 and 3 star keyframes in Lightroom, the general exposure seems to look close enough, but in the clip I've linked, the sky seems to 'flicker' or change colour where I've adjusted the exposure on camera. The exposure seems to have matched quite well like I said, with the sand in that video generally looking like it's the same dark/brightness, but the sky is a different colour. And you can also see that from about 0:18 onwards, the sun alternates between flaring and showing as a smaller ball of flame. I took care not to overexpose the highlights, but I'm just not sure how to adjust between the 2 and 3 star keyframes. Am I supposed to adjust the sliders in lightroom (apart from exposure) to match these? But then wouldn't using 4 star keyframes afterwards alter the changes I've made to it?

I'm not sure that using the colour (4 star) keyframes will help because the issue seems to be the way the camera perceives colour at different exposure settings. So even when a transition is "smoothened" between 4 star keyframes, the parts where the 2 and 3 star keyframes will still show a difference and hence cause the "flicker" or different colours.

I hope I've been making sense, thanks in advance for any replies!

- Daryl

This post was last modified: 2013-11-09, 11:44 by Gunther.

Hi Daryl,
I think a manual fine tuning of the 2*/3* adjustments in LR would improve the sequence. The automatic matching works good, but sometimes like in your sequence, it's not 100% accurate. This is not a weakness of LRTimelapse, this happens with "Match Total Exposure" in Lightroom as well.

So just go through the sequence after you are finished editing everything (after making the 4* transitions) go back to LR, read the Metadata for all images, then tweak the exposure slider for each 3* keyframe until it matches the 2* one as closely as possible. I would not use other sliders here, only Exposure.

Then save metadata for that keyframes. Now in LRTimelapse go to the auto transition special again, and select "2*/3*" - then apply the transition. This will calculate the new intermediates for the exposure only.

If you have finished that, then export and use the new motion blur feature of the exporter to smoothen out things further (especially the water is really choppy in your shot.

You won't be able to completely remove the pulsating halo around the sun. Next time underexpose even more and try making smaller (1/2EV or 1/3EV) adjustments when the sun is visible.

I have this very question as well, but wanted to play around with the software a bit more before asking. But now that the subject has been raised...

I'm not sure I fully understand your response, Gunther. Are you saying to adjust the exposure on the 2*/3* before creating the "other keyframes", or at the very end just before exporting from Lightroom?

Thanks!
Rob.

I updated my answer above to make it more clear.

I updated my answer above to make it more clear.

Thanks, that clears it up I think. I'll give this a try a little later.

In the HG workflow, when one does the 4* transitions, which (as I understand it) transitions everything *except* exposure, does it do this for *just* the 4* keyframes, or does it do it for the 2* and 3* frames as well?

If not, is there a way to make the 2* and 3* keyframes into keyframes for things other than exposure?

You must understand the 4* as a separate layer of keyframes for everything else then exposure.
So that transition will not change any exposure values and disregard the 2*/3* keyframes.

If not, is there a way to make the 2* and 3* keyframes into keyframes for things other than exposure?

Why? I fear I don't understand the question...

If not, is there a way to make the 2* and 3* keyframes into keyframes for things other than exposure?

Why? I fear I don't understand the question...

It is really more of an academic question at this point. Before I saw this thread I had assumed that the fact that my two paired HG keyframes were occasionally not perfectly matched was owing to something other than exposure. I assumed that there was something I didn't understand happening such as the characteristics of the way colour is captured varies as exposure varies. For example, that as exposure is changed the white balance shifts slightly between the two frames, but enough that it is noticeable in a timelapse. I don't know if this is an unreasonable assumption, as there are lots of nonlinearities in what is going on with the sensor I'm sure.

So the workflow I anticipated having to use was taking the two HG keyframes and after the exposure was matched adjusting some non-exposure settings to one to get the two frames to match even better.

The fundamental assumption I had behind this thinking was that I wasn't going to get the exposure any better between the two HG keyframes than LRT had. After reading this thread and trying it out for myself I see that this is not necessary: Tweaking the expose of one of the frames ever so slightly makes enough of a correction that the transition is now perfect. I have no need to correct anything else to bring the two frames together.

So, the need to treat the HG keyframes (2*/3*) as non-exposure keyframes has gone away for me.

I've found an example in one of my sequences where the need to adjust something other than exposure on one of the 2*/3* keyframes is required. It is entirely possible that the necessity for this is the result of some bad photography. It is also possible that there is an alternate way to achieve what I'm doing here. But, this is what I'm doing.

When I made an exposure adjustment, it appears that my before (2*) frame was very close to being saturated.

Original 2* Keyframe:
[Image: http://s7.postimg.org/i2jmqc5t7/1_Left_Original.jpg]

Original 3* Keyframe:
[Image: http://s23.postimg.org/9zevlk0ff/2_Right_Original.jpg]

If you look at the histograms, you can see that in the 2* frame the RGB at the high end are all together (i.e. practically white), while in the 3* there is some distinct separation in the RGB.

Next I used LRTimelapse Holy Grail Workflow to get the exposure I like:
[Image: http://s17.postimg.org/jf16npfin/5_LRTim...stment.jpg]

When this exposure is loaded in Lightroom, the difference in the RGB at the high end is more pronounced:

2* Keyframe:
[Image: http://s23.postimg.org/94wxd9hyj/6_Left_...stment.jpg]

3* Keyframe:
[Image: http://s23.postimg.org/nhuypbrcb/7_Right...stment.jpg]

To get a better match in the keyframes, I suspect I'll have to make an adjustment of the Yellow component of the 2* frame:
[Image: http://s2.postimg.org/6z404xybd/8_Left_A...stment.jpg]

This causes no problem for the Deflicker workflow, as it loads this information into the 2*/3* keyframes, and also uses this information when creating the transition:
[Image: http://s22.postimg.org/5mhat5741/9_LRTim...Reload.jpg]

The Holy Grail Workflow ignores this adjustment, however, and there is no transition on the yellow component.

I suppose that it is possible to use the Holy Grail workflow to set the exposure, and then switch to the Deflicker workflow to do all the non-exposure transitions.

Hi, if you want to adjust other parameters then exposure, you will have to use the "regular" autotransition on the basic workflow tab, not the "Auto Transition special".
Please note that the regular auto transition will not separate between "layers" of keyframes, it will treat all same - but it will respect the "jumps" between 2/3 stars.