Time lapse assembler frame blending how to#
Time lapse assembler frame blending manual#

Sometimes I’ll also do a little blurring of the mask, to help blend the masking even more. Here’s what part of my mask looks like.ĭepending on your image, you’ll need to duplicate this process on several layers to encompass the entire scene. After a little work and experimentation, the image should begin to come together. But whenever possible these important features should lie on one frame. On this image, the crane hook is a perfect example. I also like to paint little features so that they lie entirely in one or the other frame. I use a smaller brush with soft edges in a jagged path in areas of finer features. Here’s the same image that’s partially masked using a small paint brush with soft edges.Ĭontinue to paint the various features to hide and reveal the areas of the image that provides the best blending. But try several arrangements and choose the best result. It takes a little practice to see what needs to be hidden and what needs to be revealed and which layer is best on top.

I start with masking the layer that has the most features that most need hiding or blending. Choose a medium sized paint brush and paint the mask in white to reveal the areas of the image below that you want to see. Add a layer mask to this layer and then invert the mask (so it’s black). The secret here is to use the image that is covering the majority of the scene and manipulate the masks so that it blends the various elements of the image, letting through the images below. The magic occurs when the various layers are masked to manually blend the image.

Time lapse assembler frame blending manual#

This helps to find the best overlap to aid in the manual blending process. You can also arrange the layers changing which layer is on top. It won’t be perfect, but the closer the better. You first might make some curves or levels adjustments, to try to match the brightness of the various layers. Having the image in layers like this gives us considerable flexibility to manually blend the layers to produce a usable image. When it’s done, you’ll probably end up with something that looks worse than what Photoshop assembled. On my antique mobile workstation and with my 5DII images and Photoshop CS5, this takes a while. I usually just choose the Auto option and let the computer do its work. Highlight all the layers in the Pano and click Edit then Auto-Align Layers. This too can be done manually but using the Auto-Align Layers is generally the easiest and fastest option. The images then need to be aligned for the panorama. When you’re done you should end up with something looking like this, with your pano images in separate layers (lower RHS).

But I like to use the script Load Files Into Stack. You can do this manually by opening up each image and doing a Select All and the Copy/Paste. Fire up Photoshop and load up your pano images in separate layers.

Time lapse assembler frame blending how to#

Stemming from my astrophotography, I learned how to do manual panorama assemblies which can sometimes salvage shots that can’t be assembled properly by Photoshop. I’ll show how to get a better result than this using a manual technique. Below is the result of how Photoshop’s auto panorama routine handled my files of unequal exposure. I processed my images and was disappointed with the result. But many compositions are once in a lifetime shots that can never be duplicated. I made a similar mistake on a panorama of an interesting shot while in Norway. But I use Photoshop and have saved many panoramas in the way I’m about to describe. What can be done to save this panorama? There are probably many programs out there that do a better job with assembling panoramas than Photoshop. Then the reality hits you that you didn’t shoot the panorama in manual and the auto-assembled image looks unusable. So you grab a cup of coffee, load up your images and proceed with the panorama assembly. You’re anxious to get home and assemble the images. The weather is perfect, the lighting is just right and you’ve just finished shooting a 3 frame panorama of an interesting scene.