How to Edit Time-lapse Photos in Lightroom and Premiere Pro
In this video we will be learning how edit multiple time-lapse photos together in Lightroom by syncing their editing settings and then transferring them over to Premiere Pro to form the final time-lapse video.
One question a lot of beginner photographers/videographers ask is – Why create a time-lapse from photos as opposed to just shooting a single video?
Creating time-lapses is better when it’s done using photos as opposed to shooting a single video because it gives you more detail, more creative capability and more room to edit, as a raw photo has more data than a video.
For example, in the video below, you’ll see that it wasn’t a simple time-lapse because I am shooting light trails of cars, which can require a lot of editing so as to not risk losing details due to over-exposure in the trails. So I need a lot of details to work with during editing and hence it was better to shoot photos as opposed to a video. Also, shooting photos allows me to capture longer looking light trails since I can use longer (slower) shutter speeds in photos, something not possible when shooting a video. However, for simple time-lapses, shooting a video works fine too.
Here’s the video which will show you the editing part:
This video is from our Videography for Beginners course, which has 35 videos and 4.5 hours of content. You can access the full course via Udemy, using the link below:
Videography for Beginners course
Video Summary
In this tutorial, Creative Pad Media walks through the workflow for editing a professional time-lapse using Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Premiere Pro.
Workflow for Editing a Time-lapse:
Step 1: Editing in Adobe Lightroom
- Shoot in Raw: It is highly recommended to shoot in Raw format rather than JPEG to preserve color detail and dynamic range, especially in the sky during sunsets [00:44].
- Edit One Image: Import all photos into Lightroom. Select one representative image from the sequence to edit [01:45]. Adjust contrast, highlights (to recover sky detail), and shadows to make the image “pop” [02:26].
- Syncing the Sequence: Instead of editing all images individually, select all photos (Ctrl+A) and click Sync. This applies your edits to every photo in the sequence [04:24].
- Export: Once synced, export the photos as high-quality JPEGs into a dedicated folder [05:47].
Step 2: Creating the Video in Adobe Premiere Pro
- Importing as an Image Sequence: In Premiere Pro, go to the folder of edited images, select the first image, and check the “Image Sequence” box. This imports all photos as a single video-like file [08:12].
- Sequence Settings:
- DSLRs often take photos at high resolutions (e.g., 6K). Set your sequence to a standard 1080p (1920×1080) and 24 fps to keep file sizes manageable [09:54].
- Because the photos are larger than the video frame, go to Effect Controls and scale the images down (typically to around 32%) to fit the 1080p frame [11:32].
- Export: Export the final timeline to create your video file. With 524 images at 24 fps, the resulting time-lapse will be approximately 21 seconds long [12:38].
