Time Lapse Part 1

Quick reference

• 00:04 I'm gonna show you guys a very simple technique on how you can
• 00:07 blend multiple images together.
• 00:09 Just like the image that you see in front of you right here.
• 00:11 These images are gonna be used in the next video to create a nice time lapse like
• 00:15 you're seeing playing on the screen right now.
• 00:18 So, to get these images into Photoshop, there are a few ways you can do it.
• 00:21 But one method that a lot of people don't use is under the File > Scripts menu, and
• 00:25 then you can choose Load Files into Stack.
• 00:28 This will allow you to browse your images, select all the ones that you want,
• 00:31 load it into a single document and then press Open.
• 00:34 And then once you press OK, Photoshop's going to take those images,
• 00:37 put them into one document, and layer them on top of each other.
• 00:41 And as you can see here in the Layers panel I have image one, two, three, and
• 00:45 four, now obviously they're different sizes.
• 00:47 So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna resize this image,
• 00:49 which is our largest image, down to around the size of the smallest image, or
• 00:54 at least this size right over here.
• 00:55 I'm gonna press Return or Enter and then with my Crop tool,
• 00:59 shortcut key C, I am simply going to bring this in just like that.
• 01:02 And it is okay if I crop off a little bit of the image,
• 01:04 because that can always be adjusted later on,
• 01:07 as long as you have delete cropped pixels turned off on your options bar.
• 01:12 So, Return or Enter to accept the crop and if I turn off the visibility of this layer
• 01:16 and back on these layers, you can see that some of them don't fit perfectly, so
• 01:20 if you want you can grab the Crop tool one more time and
• 01:23 actually bring that in, but really it's not too necessary at this point.
• 01:26 Because I am using images from shutterstock.com even after cropping,
• 01:30 I still have a width of 3,000 and a height of around 2,000 so
• 01:34 these are pretty large images.
• 01:35 Now in terms of the blending process, I want to create a nice transition from
• 01:38 a blue sky, to a sunset, down to the night sky and
• 01:42 then back to a sunrise which will then transition back into the blue sky.
• 01:46 So obviously we're going to need a little bit more room than what we have here, so
• 01:50 I'm going to grab my Crop tool one last time, shortcut key C, and
• 01:53 I'm going to zoom out by holding down my space bar along with the Alt or
• 01:56 Option key, and then I'm going to grab the right side of the crop handle and
• 02:00 drag it all the way this way.
• 02:02 So we have a nice amount of room to transition our photos.
• 02:05 Again, press Return or Enter and at this point I wanna grab my next image and
• 02:09 move it beside and possibly even on top of the blue sky.
• 02:12 So I'm gonna grab my Move tool, shortcut key V,
• 02:14 I'm gonna select that next layer in the Layers panel,
• 02:17 drag it on top of the blue sky and then simply move it over to the right, and
• 02:22 I can hold down my Shift key to constrain it horizontally, just like that.
• 02:25 And when you're moving it, let me move this down just a little bit, you do
• 02:28 wanna leave a little bit of an overlap so we can transition the two images nicely.
• 02:32 So I'm gonna place this one right here, and
• 02:34 we can always move it later if it doesn't fit properly.
• 02:36 Now I'm gonna grab the next image, which is the night sky,
• 02:39 I'm gonna move this one on top of the stack, and then over to the right.
• 02:44 And again we do wanna leave a little bit of overlap.
• 02:47 Now for this image here we do wanna do a little bit of editing before we proceed.
• 02:51 So I'm gonna zoom back in,
• 02:52 now if we do the transition from here to here we're gonna lose part of the moon,
• 02:56 and you're also noticing that we can't see the clouds that well.
• 02:59 So how do we fix this?
• 03:00 Well there's a tool in Photoshop that was introduced in Photoshop CS4.
• 03:04 Under the Edit menu you can choose Content Aware Scale, and
• 03:07 this will allow you to scale down your image without losing much detail.
• 03:11 You're noticing as I'm scaling it, the moon stays circular,
• 03:15 it doesn't get squished like it would when you're scaling normally.
• 03:18 That will allow us to fit the moon and the clouds in the same document.
• 03:22 And when I have it nicely scaled I'm gonna press Return or
• 03:25 Enter on my keyboard to apply that transformation.
• 03:28 Now depending on the size of the image, a transformation like this
• 03:31 may take a few seconds, or even a few minutes if you have a slow computer.
• 03:34 Now the next thing we need to worry about is where the moon is located.
• 03:37 Like I mentioned, if we do the transition from here to around here,
• 03:40 to blend these two images nicely together, that moon is likely to be faded out and
• 03:45 we don't want that.
• 03:46 There are a few tools that we can use to deal with this issue, including the clone
• 03:49 stamp or the patch tool, but I'm gonna use one of the newer tools in Photoshop, and
• 03:53 it's located in the tools bar where the Patch Tool also is, and
• 03:56 I'm gonna choose the Content Aware Move Tool.
• 03:58 And this will very simply allow you to grab an object and
• 04:01 move it to a new location.
• 04:02 And it starts off very similar to a Lasso tool where you can just drag around to
• 04:06 create a selection around the object you want to move, just like that.
• 04:09 I'm gonna change the adaptation to Loose, and I am simply going to
• 04:13 grab this moon and move it over to a new location, somewhere right around there,
• 04:17 and Photoshop is going to start doing all of these calculations, and in a second,
• 04:21 you are going to see that Photoshop has taken the moon and moved it
• 04:24 to a new location, just like that, and then command or control d to deselect.
• 04:28 And then if you are left with any rough edges,
• 04:30 you can grab your spot healing brush.
• 04:32 I am going to simply enlarge the brush, just like this.
• 04:34 I want to make it nice and soft, enlarge it a little bit more, and
• 04:38 then I want to brush around the area that was a little bit rough, just like this,
• 04:41 right around the moon, and then Photoshop is going to take a look at
• 04:44 the surrounding area and do its best to give you a nice smooth result.
• 04:48 And there you have it, now here's the before, and here's the after.
• 04:51 There's a little bit of a rough edge right here, but I can decrease the size of
• 04:54 this spot healing brush and I can simply brush around this area just like this, and
• 04:58 hopefully Photoshop in a second or
• 05:00 two will smooth out the area just like you see there.
• 05:03 So perfect, now this image is dealt with,
• 05:04 now if I grab my Move tool again I can move it, and I'm gonna make sure it
• 05:07 overlaps nicely with the image to the left, just like that.
• 05:11 So now we can move on to the next image.
• 05:13 I'm gonna zoom right back out, just like I did before.
• 05:15 I'm gonna grab my final image in the Layers panel,
• 05:17 move it on top of the stack, and shift it over to the right.
• 05:20 Now, this one's a little bit smaller than the rest, but it's not too much smaller.
• 05:24 So I can safely Cmd or
• 05:25 Ctrl+T to enter Free Transform Mode, and bring it back up just a little bit.
• 05:29 Return or Enter to accept the changes.
• 05:31 And once again, I do want to make sure that it overlaps nicely.
• 05:35 Now, taking a look at the images that we have, this image here,
• 05:38 the second image, is a little bit too small.
• 05:40 Which, after we do all of our blending,
• 05:42 we're not going to be left with much of an image.
• 05:44 I'm gonna select this image, hold down Cmd or Ctrl and
• 05:46 click on it, and all I'm gonna do is enlarge this image.
• 05:48 So I'm gonna enter Free Transform Mode, grab the top left handle, and
• 05:52 then drag it up just like this.
• 05:54 It will lose a little bit of quality, but it won't be too bad.
• 05:57 And once that's done, press Return or Enter, and
• 05:59 then I'm gonna move it into place, somewhere right around here again.
• 06:02 I do want to make sure that there's a little bit of an overlap over here.
• 06:05 I want that sun showing, but a little bit lower because the sun will be setting.
• 06:09 And then once that's done I can go and
• 06:10 make sure that everything else is in place.
• 06:12 So I'm going to move this one over here, grab this one here and
• 06:15 move it over to the right just a little bit, right about here.
• 06:18 Now I have run out of space, so
• 06:19 I can enter the Crop the tool and drag this handle over to the right.
• 06:23 Now I'm actually going to go all the way over this way,
• 06:26 because what I need to do now is make a duplicate of the blue sky.
• 06:30 So in my Layers panel I'm going to grab this layer, I'm going to hold down Alt or
• 06:33 Option with my Shift key, and then drag it over to the right.
• 06:36 And I also want to make sure to move it to the top of the layer stack, and
• 06:39 then position it in place just like this.
• 06:41 This way when we're creating our animation, if we want it to loop,
• 06:44 it will be a nice seamless video.
• 06:46 Now this last image here is a little bit too small, as well, so one more time,
• 06:49 I'm going to transform it just a little bit.
• 06:52 Move this image over to the right and then I can grab my Crop tool and
• 06:57 pull this in a little bit.
• 06:58 Now I do want to pay attention to where it starts over here, where it cuts off, and
• 07:02 then where it ends here.
• 07:03 So looking back right about there,
• 07:06 that should give us a nice loop when we do create the animation, but
• 07:09 we can always go back later on and make changes if necessary.
• 07:13 So now that all the images are in place,
• 07:15 let me show you how simple it is to actually blend them together.
• 07:18 I'm gonna zoom back in, space bar and Cmd or Ctrl and then click.
• 07:22 I want to make sure to grab this image here,
• 07:24 the image on top which is our second image, and I want to add a layer mask.
• 07:27 So at the bottom of our Layers panel, I'm going to click on the Add Layer Mask
• 07:30 icon which will give us a blank layer mask.
• 07:33 And to blend one image to another, we basically want to take a black
• 07:36 gradient which will allows us to fade the active image on the edge.
• 07:40 So I'm going to grab the Gradient Tool in the Tools bar right here, and
• 07:43 at the top I wanna make sure it's set to Foreground to Transparent.
• 07:46 I wanna make sure it's set to Linear, and
• 07:49 then I wanna make sure that the color is set to appear black.
• 07:52 And once that's done, you can go to the edge of your image or
• 07:54 even a little bit to the left, hold down your Shift key and
• 07:57 then drag to the right, and you're gonna notice that image starts to fade away.
• 08:01 Now what you may want to do is go a little bit more to the left and
• 08:04 create your grain a few times so you get a nice gradual transition, just like this.
• 08:10 And you'll see that nicely fades from one image to another.
• 08:13 And because we use a nice long gradient, we don't have a very sharp result,
• 08:17 like you might have had if you just went from the edge right over to the right.
• 08:21 So now this image has been faded.
• 08:23 I'm going to hold down space bar, pan over to the right.
• 08:25 I'm gonna grab the sky image.
• 08:27 I'm gonna add a layer mask, just like I did before, and
• 08:30 one more time I'm going to create a gradient from the left to the right.
• 08:33 And do that a few times until you have a nice transition to the image,
• 08:37 just like this.
• 08:38 And you do want a nice gradual transition.
• 08:40 You don't want anything too sharp because then it's gonna look a little bit
• 08:43 unrealistic.
• 08:44 And if you do feel that the transition is a little bit too sharp,
• 08:47 you can always Undo a few times and then try it again.
• 08:49 So I'm gonna do this again from the left-hand side over to the right.
• 08:52 And because we have a nice overlap over here,
• 08:55 this does give you a lot of room to work with.
• 08:57 So I can just keep doing this until the transition is nice and
• 09:00 gradual, just like this.
• 09:01 And you can also see a little bit of the clouds seeping over,
• 09:03 which is exactly what we want.
• 09:05 So now that this one's done, I'm gonna pan over to the left, I'm gonna
• 09:08 grab this image here, our next one, add a layer mask, and do the exact same thing.
• 09:13 So I'm gonna create a nice gradual.
• 09:15 Now, you are seeing right here,
• 09:16 there's a little bit of transparency cuz the overlap ends.
• 09:19 So I'm gonna Undo that and try it one more time, and
• 09:23 that should give us a much nicer looking transition just like this.
• 09:26 And finally, we're gonna go back to this image here,
• 09:29 the top one, add a layer mask, and do the exact same thing just like this.
• 09:34 And do it a few times so you get a nice, gradual transition.
• 09:37 There we go.
• 09:38 So now zooming back out, we have our blue sky going to a sunset,
• 09:42 going to a nighttime shot, a sunrise, and then back to our blue sky.
• 09:47 And of course, depending on how much overlap you have, and
• 09:50 how large your images are, you can really create some nice, seamless transitions.
• 09:54 Now, when you're viewing your panorama from this far out,
• 09:57 when you're zoomed out this far, it's going to look sharper than it actually is.
• 10:00 If I do go ahead and zoom back in,
• 10:02 you'll notice that the transition isn't as sharp as it looked when you're zoomed out.
• 10:06 And when we eventually take this image and
• 10:07 put it into our time-lapse animation, it should look nice and smooth.
• 10:11 So that'll do it for this video.
• 10:13 A very simple technique on how you can blend one image with
• 10:16 another using layer masks and the Gradient tool.

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