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RAW sequence to 4k HDR video workflow

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#1 jorn-t
Hello!

I've got about 80 000 RAW images = 250 timelapse sequences from 10 weeks of photographing in the Western USA and Northern Norway the last three years or so. Unfortunately, I've not had time to do much of the post processing yet, but I've been fiddling around with LRTimelapse trial version and Lightroom for a while.

Until now I've only rendered to 1080p. I've now decided to try to find a good and not extremely time consuming workflow and render those sequences into 4k HDR video, preferably lossless formats for further editing in Premiere Pro or similar.

Does anyone have a good workflow?

I want to do the following:
1. Keyframe and deflicker RAW sequence in LRTimelapse
2. Edit keyframes in Lightroom and make transitions in LRTimelapse
3. On some sequences, I want to use AE Warp Stabilizer - directly on the RAW images (if that is possible? I've tried, but had problems combining Warp Stabilizer with Ken Burns style animated sequences - which I use a lot. Problem is that the resulting frames will differ in size.)
4. Render directly from RAW files to 4k HDR lossless video format (or ProRes). Or via lossless intermediates. But how?

If 4) is not possible, would it be possible to:

5 a) Batch render 3, 5 or 7 lossless intermediate files for each frame, with RAW exposures set to, let's say +2, +1, 0, -1, -2. 
5 b) Batch combine files using Tone Mapping in Photomatix Pro, preferably into a intermediate lossless HDR image format (??)
5 c) Render from HDR images to HDR video?

I've used Photomatix for HDR still images, but I am a complete newbie when it comes to HDR video, I don't even know which formats to use...
And I guess the Photomatix workflow would demand a lot of disk space. RAW files are about 2 TB, and I hope to avoid create more than 5 TB of intermediate files.

Final question: Would a LRTimelapse Private licence be ok for my usage, or do I need a Pro licence?


Kind regards,
- Jørn, Trondheim, Norway :-)
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#2 Gunther
Some recommendations
- Don't bother doing that HDR stuff. It will overcomplicate your workflow and not bring significant advantages. I'd recommend doing the regular workflow, exporting intermediary sequences in TIFF and rendering in BT2020 Wide Gamut from LRTimelapse. This combined with the dynamic editing that you did in Lightroom will give you a very wide color space and outstanding results.
2.) Do any stabilizing, ken burns etc. by bringing the exported intermediary TIFF-sequence into After Effects (or other video editing program that you use for stabilizing). Don't do it on the original RAW files. Then export again as stabilized TIFF sequence in the LRTimelapse naming sceme and render with LRTimelapse.

You'd need a pro license for the tiff intermediary files and for any commercial usage of the footage.
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#3 jorn-t
I have been experimenting a bit with Photomatix, and with the Adobe After Effects renderer, and must say I'm so far disappointed with the results. Rendering with High10, 2020 and HDR settings in AE gives very flat and dull colours. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.. So I think I have to agree with you, I get better far results using the LRTimelapse renderer actually.

I might do some more testing with Photomatix, and I'm still interested if anyone has done some HDR videos.

I went for the LRT Pro version, to be able to render to TIFF and for batch processing. I actually thought about sending you a feature request for two things:
- One button multipass deflicker
- Batch creation of visual previews

But the day after I bought the 4.x Pro version, you released version 5.0 - and it is AWESOME!

As I mentioned above, I'm in the process of post-producing 250 clips, and the batch features, multipass deflicker & visual previews running in the background saves a LOT of work. Most of my clips are shot in Aperture mode and flickers a lot. This is now fixed extremely well, with minimal effort. The workflow progress "checkboxes" are also a very welcome feature, when dealing with such a vast amount of clips.

I am a very happy customer right now :-)

FYI, I had problems rendering videos (using File -> Render video), the Render button was disabled in v. 5.0. It seems to be working now in 5.0.1.
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#4 Gunther
Glad you are happy! ;-)
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