LRTimelapse Forum

I keep coming back and trying this program because I know people are getting good results with it. I continue to not be able to get it to work. It's frustrating because seeing what others have done with it I want to like it and want to be able to use it.

I've got a folder of 2300+ images. Nikon NEF files from a D700. I've made whatever changes I need to in LR and have written out the metadata to XMP sidecar files. When I launch LRTimelapse and nagivate to the appropriate folder, the image ingestion process begins. When it's recognised all the images I get an error message indicating that some files have missing metadata. They don't. I've installed the exif reader program to see if that helps. It seems to. But as the process begins to read the image data and compute the Mean brightness values, after anywhere from 75% to 90% of the way through, the program stops. It just stops loading the XMP data. I tried again, bypassing the exif reader step and the same thing happens. I've tried exiting and relaunching with no different result. I've tried using the Reload button with no success.

I'm using the beta version of LR4 and wonder if this may be part of the problem because Adobe have pretty significantly changed the controls. I've got the latest version of LRTimelapse installed as well.

For the metadata it is reading, it's giving some fairly wild results. The attached screen cap illustrates. The images were taken 12 seconds apart under identical lighting situations and yet the display is showing radically different brightness values.

Please advise.

Thanks.

Hi,

(2012-02-09, 02:54)RFPhotog Wrote: [ -> ]I keep coming back and trying this program because I know people are getting good results with it. I continue to not be able to get it to work. It's frustrating because seeing what others have done with it I want to like it and want to be able to use it.

it might be due to the fact that others follow the instructions I write and read my tips in the forum.

The workflow is explained here:
http://lrtimelapse.com/#tabs-8-0-4

Quote:But as the process begins to read the image data and compute the Mean brightness values, after anywhere from 75% to 90% of the way through, the program stops. It just stops loading the XMP data

I would like to encourage you to try the newest alpha version from my website (bottom of downloadpage) and install ExifTool. That should get you going.
On large sequences you can interrupt loading anytime and than save, that stores smaller previews for faster subsequent loading. The new alpha gives you a preferences-dialog where you can decrease the preview-size for smaller memory footprint.

Quote:I'm using the beta version of LR4 and wonder if this may be part of the problem because Adobe have pretty significantly changed the controls. I've got the latest version of LRTimelapse installed as well.

You have 1.6.1 installed. That version does not support LR4! See:
http://forum.lrtimelapse.com/Thread-lrti...ightroom+4

You could howerver try it with the LR4 alpha - in the preferences Dialog change the processversion to LR4 - make sure to upgrade you image sequence to Processversion 2012 in Lightroom too after initializing it in LRTimelapse!

Quote:For the metadata it is reading, it's giving some fairly wild results. The attached screen cap illustrates. The images were taken 12 seconds apart under identical lighting situations and yet the display is showing radically different brightness values.

That looks indeed weird. I don't know your sequence and thus can't tell anything only from the screenshot. But the brightness of the images (blue curve) is not read out of the metadata, it is computed from the previews. You should definitely draw a reference area into the preview-panel to mark a region that only reflect global changes. But please sort the other things out first following my workflow.
You should as well check, if your sort order in LRTimelapse is correct. You might have to rename your images to a sequence 0001,0002, etc. you can do that in Lightroom or bridge and than check "sort by filename" in LRTimelapse.

I hope I don't sound too angry but I spend a lot of time writing down stuff and answering the same questions over and over in the forum. So I expect people to do a quick search first before filing a bug report. Thank you.

Thanks, I understand your frustration. I also am frustrated because, as I said, I want to like this application, use it and pay something for it.

I am following your workflow as described in your worflow thread. I did read the thread about large sequences and missing metadata but all the images in this sequence do have associated XMP files so that shouldn't be a problem unless what you're talking about in that other thread is that the XMP file is empty rather than simply doesn't exist.

I didn't see the thread dealing with LR4. I'll have a look at that one.

The sort order is fine, the images are being loaded in sequence. I have checked that.

I'll draw a reference area if I can get to the point where all of the information is loaded and am able to move to the next step.

Thanks.

Please not that I improved the workflow, so make sure to use that one that starts with initializing the metadata in LRTimelapse (described at http://lrtimelapse.com/http://lrtimelaps...tabs-8-0-4)

Regarding LR4 - I just wrote an instruction how to use LRT with LR4:
http://forum.lrtimelapse.com/Thread-lrti...rsion-2012

Thanks and please come back to me if your problems remain.

(2012-02-09, 15:59)gwegner Wrote: [ -> ]Please not that I improved the workflow, so make sure to use that one that starts with initializing the metadata in LRTimelapse (described at http://lrtimelapse.com/http://lrtimelaps...tabs-8-0-4)

This first link is taking me to a blank page, unfortunately.

I have downloaded the new alpha version and changed the process to LR4. Will see how it proceeds.