Hey LRTimelapse experts, apologies if this has been answered elsewhere but I couldn't find it in FAQs or on the forum.

The exam question is: What is the easiest way to remove unwanted objects from a time-lapse sequence when Lightroom Clone / Heal does not suffice?

Scenario:

I took some footage of a coastal scene the other day (400 RAW images over 3hrs) and used LRTimelapse 5.5.7 free version and Lightroom, following the visual workflow and render process step by step to produce a result without flickering, more light balanced etc. So far so good....

However, during the recording process, there were a number of moving barges and large ships which came through the scene and spoilt the nice view of the sky and tide going out. They also obscured some landscape and islands in the background. I considered using Clone within Lightroom but I couldn't replace the background features obscured by these large ships (occurred in about 10% of the 400 shots).

Therefore, I went through the LRTimelapse process again and then edited the photos in Photoshop. I did this at the penultimate stage just before Exporting back from Lightroom into LRTimelapse to do the final Render (having done all the other time-lapse steps). Of note my shutter speed was 1 second which blurred some of the smaller high speed boats but did little for the barge and big ship.

Basically, from Lightroom I opened up the RAW photos with the unwanted objects in Photoshop, and used the previous photo in the sequence to copy and paste a new layer and obscure the moving ship/object in question, then merged layers, and saved as a TIFF image back into Lightroom (then deleted the original RAW image with the unwanted object - otherwise Lightroom keeps both).

I did this with all the unwanted objects then exported all images from Lightroom back into LRTimelapse to Render. However, it then put the ships back in! I couldn't seem to edit the sequence and get the unwanted objects back out.
Eventually, with lots of warnings about loading an intermediary sequence etc, I eventually managed to get a video with the ships removed but frankly I was confused in a export / import metadata, what stage to do what etc. I suspect I was doing things in the wrong order or using the wrong technique.

Therefore grateful for advice.
What is the best way to edit and remove unwanted objects and maintain the best quality in a time-lapse sequence?
What stage should this be done?

Thanks in advance

If you want to do this, you should first export a JPG or tiff sequence from lightroom via LRT export plug in and then do the editing on the exported intermediary sequence (in the LRT_ folder). After that you can just render that folder via file/render Video in LRTimelapse.

Sent mobile...

Ok, thanks for the quick reply. But when do I do the LRTimelapse visual workflow steps (Keyframes wizard, drag to lightroom, reload etc)? Still a bit confused as to exactly what steps to do in what order.

Do I load photos in Lightroom first or LRTimelapse? What about the import / read metadata etc. Feel free to reference to your visual workflow and render as to when I do the editing photos bit.

Sorry if questions a bit basic, am still very new to LRTimelapse.

p.s. very impressed with the software, might upgrade to Pro version, just trying to get to grips with the options

You do the regular visual workflow, now difference, just not the retouching on single images.
Follow the instructions here: https://lrtimelapse.com/workflow/ -> Visual Workflow
When doing the Export from Lightroom via LRTExport you can check "Skip Rendering in LRTimelapse". After the export completed you can use Photoshop to edit the exported images in the LRT_ on a bitmap basis.
After doing that, just open LRTimelapse, go to File / Render video and render the edited intermediary sequence that you exported and retouched.

Brilliant, got it thanks :-)

Is it possible to edit the JPGs created from the LightRoom export in the LRT_ folder in PhotoShop, and then export them back to JPGs and get the colors to match? Or, is this only possible to do this type of editing with TIFF files? My quick edit and export this morning with JPGs from PhotoShop creates a bit of a color change from the JPGs exported from LightRoom. Thanks for any advice here.