This post was last modified: 2015-02-11, 00:25 by Stefoto.

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to understand how to avoid very annoying problem. I shoot in full manual with untwisted lens and low shutter like 1/25 so I already minimized the chance of flicker almost to 0. However I still get flickering when I have people passing by near the camera. When the people or cars are near the camera or take big part of the image the overall brightness is reduced just a bit, enough to be seen as flicker when the final sequence is played. Here are 3 frames attached. Frame 01 is normal, Frame 02 is a bit dark and Frame 03 is normal again. You have to toggle between frames to see the issue. I hope you can help me.

Best regards,
Stefan

I suppose with "untwisted" you mean twisted (disconnected)?

Do you probably have active D-Lightning or any other in camera edits activated? They could cause such effects on the JPG previews emedded in the raws, then in LRTimelapse it looks like the sequence is flickering even if the RAWs are not - if you then apply deflicker, you will introduce flicker to the developed RAWs that didn't have any.

Hi,

yes I mean the lens is disconnected. I have any in camera edits turned off. This is the sequence after some editing in LR not straight from camera JPG previews. I shoot only RAW. I haven't applied any deflicker. Just edited the sequence as I normally do. Also haven't used any clarity that may cause this effect. Is it possible that other effects may introduce flicker that normally isn't there? When I watch the RAW sequence there is no flicker at all.

Then it might be Lightroom introducing this. If you use some non-linear acting tools in lightroom to a certain extent (blacks, whites, clarity especially) then Lightroom will apply those dynamically depending on the content of the images. So if in one image you have a dark subject in the foreground Lightroom will develop in a different way then in the next frame where this is gone.
Try using those settings very carefully on those sequences, try using the parametric tone curve instead and adjust less.

This post was last modified: 2015-02-11, 12:06 by Stefoto.

Hi,

well I used mostly Highlights - 75% and Shadows + 60
White +10 and Blacks - 10. Can this introduce the flicker? Are the Highlights and Shadows non linear fx? What are the other FX solutions that I can apply and they will remain the same throughout the entire sequence? What if I dial the settings down of the Highlights and Shadows and remove the White and Blacks completely and set them to 0.
I guess I need to try out and export a couple of times to see what happens.

Hi Gunter,

First, thanks so much for lrtimelapse - you, your program and your support are all brilliant.

I see that lots of people are having these flicker issues. I have found that these non-linear tools ruin my timelapses more often than not if I use them at all. And sometimes it's simply not possible to compensate for not having them. I know some people argue otherwise, but I'm a very experienced image editor and the lack of a point curve, along with the inability to use much in the way of blacks, whites, contrast and clarity is a serious handicap when editing sequences and I find myself trying to avoid using lrtimelapse if at all possible. If I need a holy grail sequence or to ramp extreme exposure changes, there is often no other choice and, as I mentioned, I'm a huge fan of lrtimelapse for that. But the compromised editing toolset makes it so that I avoid using it whenever possible. Image sequences edited outside of lrtimelapse look so much better that I'll often trade the ability to maintain a good exposure through the sequence for the ability to use these specific editing tools. The thing that I find strange is that heavy use of these non-linear adjustments do not introduce flicker when used outside of lrtimelapse. I've used heavy contrast and clarity in hundreds of timelapses outside of lrtimelapse without any issues. I'm just curious if you have any insight into this issue and the possibility of any future resolution. I really am very impressed with your program and your dedication to it and grateful to have access to it. Thanks a lot!

Colin, thank you for that statement - but I can assure you that that has absolutely nothing to do with LRTimelapse, the non linear editing is a Lightroom only problem!

If you edit a sequence only in Lightroom with the same settings, say strong clarity, whites, blacks, whatever, and just sync them to the whole sequence you will get exactly the same effect, if you have a sequence with lots of changes in luminosity because it's Lightroom that applies the settings in a different way depending on the brightness of the image. LRTimelapse only manipulates the Lightroom-Settings, no more.

So please do some more tests then you will see that I'm right. No reason not to use LRTimelapse.

Regarding the point curve: you can use it - you just cannot animate it. You will have to sync it manually in Lightroom to all images.

Let me know if you find out something or send me a sample sequence where I can reproduce your issues, maybe that could shed some light on what's going on there.

Thanks very much for your response Gunther. Also, looking back at my message, I realized that I forgot the "h" in your name. Lame - sorry about that.

I know that you know what you're talking about but I find it very hard to believe that there isn't some other factor at work here. I've processed literally hundreds, maybe thousands of timelapses using Bridge and Camera Raw, which is the same workflow I use with LRT, and I've had very few flickering problems - a handful maybe out of hundreds. But I encounter some sort of flickering almost every time I use these non-linear adjustments with LRT. And I have taken sequences that I've processed with LRT that have bad flicker and simply synchronized all the photos' settings with a random photo from the middle of the sequence, so that every photo had the same amount of clarity that was applied in the LRT sequence but no parameters were being keyframed, and had the flicker disappear.

Is it possible that the fact that LRT is ramping other parameters, such as exposure, levels, etc. makes the non-linear adjustments such as clarity be interpreted slightly differently on different frames? I recognize that the nature of these adjustments is that they are applied in a unique way to every frame regardless of whether or not you're using LRT but what I'm getting at is that perhaps the fact that other parameters are also changing in each frame, as LRT ramps them, helps to amplify this variance from one frame to the next. Is that possible?

Thanks again for your help!

Hi Colin, like I said, this is technically not possible. XMP adjustments are XMP adjustments, no matter if done in LRT or in LR/ACR.

Are you using the deflicker feature of LRTimelapse? This is the only thing that could introduce changes in brightness from one image to the other. I'd suggest you leave deflicker off for your tests.

I'm still wanting to get a sequence from you, where the LRTimelapse edit causes those weird effects mentioned by you and a simple synchronize in LR/Bridge would fix it. Please share it with me.

I mean, you can see in the LRTimelapse parameter table exactly what LRTimelapse is doing - so just check those values, check the curves (click on ALL top of the preview to see all curves at once). See if you can find any anomalies.

Another thing to take care of is the process version. I guess, you are working with the latest versions of Bridge/ACR, Lightroom and LRTimelapse?

Hi Gunther,

Sorry for the long delay getting back to you. I got wrapped up in another project and haven't had time to do further tests. I did just re-process a couple of the timelapses that I had mentioned which contained flicker when ramped in LRT but did not contain flicker when I did not ramp anything in LRT even though they still had relatively high clarity and contrast values. As you suggested, I used LRT again but did not enable deflickering and, you were right, I got the same results as when not using LRT. So the flickering I'm having trouble with, at least in those two cases that I tested, seems to be caused by the deflickering. I'm not sure why that would be but I'm happy to have figured that out. I can use GBDeflicker in After Effects if I need to until I figure things out more and I'm very happy to know that I can use LRT to ramp development parameters without introducing extra flicker. I'm still buried with this other project at the moment but I'll try to do some more tests with this and get back to you again. Thanks again for your help!

Best,
Colin