Well, I'm really trying to step up my game when it comes to timelapse, so I bought Lightroom 4 and downloaded LR Timelapse for it. The results are stunning! ...but I'm running into SEVERE quality bottleneck when it comes to creating a movie for NLE editing! My two problems are that I can either:

1) Try to use the slideshow templates to create a .mp4, but the quality is TERRIBLE, I'm talking serious compression artifacts and banding.

2) export .tiffs which look astounding, but then when I try to open an image sequence with QT Pro, it instantly, before I even go to export, looks dull and lifeless, and nothing like the images I just graded and exported from Lightroom.

I cannot afford to lose image quality here. Is there a third option that I'm missing?

Hi Ben, I'd be interested to hear your work flow here, I posted yesterday regarding cr2 files, the solution could be Lightroom - I'm making a film using FCP 7 and I was looking at including some time lapses, hence the need to be able to load cr2 files. What are you creating for your NLE? and is it FCP? I have created a sequence with jpg's, but it would be nice to use the full RAW files. Sorry if I'm taking you off course here!

Well, when I made this:

My workflow was: Shoot RAW > Color process one photo in Digital Photo Pro that comes with the EOS utility > copy recipe to clipoard > select all thumbnails & post to all > Batch process to .jpg. > create ProRes image sequence in QT Pro > take into FCS3 and do slight tweaks to color grading.

Now, I'm using LR Timelapse in conjunction with Lightroom 4, but what I'd like to do from there is export a series of .tif images and create an image sequence from there, but QT Pro doesn't read them right, and it rapes the image quality I worked so hard to get in LR. The other option is to create a slideshow out of Lightroom itself in 23.976 fps. The problem with that is, I can retain more of the look, but it's compressed to hell as .mp4 / h.264. Granted, this can be better than .mov / h.264, but it still sucks. I'd like to have something at least 2k, that can be read properly, and exported as 4:2:2, or at least something better than h.264.

I just watched the LR Timelapse video from the guy that made it. I may be over simplifying it but it seems to me that: The LR Timelapse takes your image sequences, applies a 'key frame' that allows you to then do a smooth transition over the course of several shots. All this metadata is being copied from one app to the next. The final step has you choosing a template to export as a slideshow, but I would just assume you could export the images and create your 4K in QTpro...Or, AfterEffects...

I'm going to give it a try...I don't see how it couldn't work. I've heard that QT can do something to color, but I don't know if it applies here. I'll post back when I have something

Hey Ben,

A couple of things. I never used LRTimelapse nor QTpro to render them but I did use Lightroom a couple of times to process images for timelapses and as a long time still's photographer I know LTR inside and out.

- First if you are rendering the timelapse outside of LTR, there is no need to use TIFF files, it's totally overkill. Honestly, a lightly compressed JPEG (read it high quality settings) is virtually identical to a TIFF file from the same image. The only purpose of exporting a TIFF or PSD for instance is when you need to do further post-processing over those images in other App outside of the raw converter capabilities and then saving over the file multiple times when working with it somewhere else. Otherwise, for any other end-use with no further image manipulation, a good JPEG is more than suitable. You can trust me on that.

- As for the images being off colour after you export them and open in another software, I don't know your workflow but it may well be a colour profile issue. Make sure you export your images using the sRGB colour profile anything else opened in a non-colour-managed app will look weird. I never used QTpro to do renders so there maybe something else happening over there but i'd give this a try. Nowadays I use Final Cut pro X to render TLs directly and it works flawlessly. By the way when you import the images to FCP X they may look off colour in the timeline but they do look right in the final render, I don't know why and that maybe true for other apps as well. If you don't own FCP X, try with After effects or something else.

Hope this helps.

I did pretty much nail the LR / LRT workflow. And yes, LRT does take two or three (maybe more, but five was too much for what I was doing) keyframed and graded images, and then applies an "auto keyframe" animation to all the in between ones, to smoothly grade over the course of the timelapse. The problem is that QT Pro mangles them when I create an image sequence with them, using sRGB or any of the other two RGB profiles. TIFF may be overkill, but I'd use them if it would clear up this problem. It won't. I have since downloaded the Pro Templates from the guy, and the 3k one seems to look pretty good, but it seems an awful shame to be dealing in a mpeg4 with h.264 compression, 80-120 mbps though it may be. The thing I always loved about QT Pro was that I could make Pro Res 422 or even 4444 if needed. The mp4 / h.264 4:2:0 architecture just doesn't seem like a great idea, even if the results seem nice on the surface. Plus, I suppose only time will tell if LR 4 is even sufficient for exporting video.