In an ever-evolving world, there are plenty of timelapse software out there that promise to help you with your creative/artistic endeavors. But it can get quite overwhelming really quickly. There’s a lot of apps to choose from, and each one does a different thing.

So if you want to know the options you have when making timelapses, and how they compare against each other, buckle up!

You can add photos and time lapse sequences to your videos, making them come alive with panning effects. Additionally, it offers graphs and gauges, creation of short video clips, editing burst and time lapse photos. Besides this, users can backup their photos and videos on cloud with GoPro Plus and share them on social media. Video mode time-lapse where your GoPro camera puts together the finished time-lapse video for you. This is the most convenient way of doing it, no video editing or post-production work needed. And then you have the photo mode time-lapse, where your GoPro camera will give you a bunch of different photos which you need to put together yourself.

Gopro Time Lapse Photo To Video Imovie

Contents

Hustl

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ [5/5]
Price: $29 one-time-payment

Record screen timelapses effortlessly

With Hustl, you don't have to worry about editing or speeding up the video – just press record and you'll get a ready-to-share timelapse of your screen to show off your work.

✅ Pro 1: Direct timelapse export, no need to post edit the video
✅ Pro 2: Ultra high-definition with 4K & 8K support and the possibility to pause your recording and resume anytime.
✅ Pro 3: Select the final duration and control every detail, fixing the aspect ratio or going fullscreen.

❌ Con 1: Only available for Mac

Hustl is a Mac app that allows you to record your screen and create awesome screen timelapses, with no post editing required and no need to manage heavy files. Just adjust the frame you wanna record or the limit it to an specific app or page and hit “record”!

Once finished, adjust the video speed and voilá! you will be able to export directly your timelapse video, ready to share.

Here you can see a real example of a user creating a cool screen timelapse with Hustl:

Time-lapse process vid of Fin Durr.
Made with the excellent @gohustl#timelpase#blender3d@BlenderArtists#music#guitarpic.twitter.com/JsvcMdOsNW

Adobe Photoshop

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ [5/5]
Price: $20,99 / month

✅ Pro 1: Photoshop has a fast exportation process, both for video and photos
✅ Pro 2:Photoshop can natively create timelapses without any additional software
✅ Pro 3: Photoshop is really intuitive for beginners

❌ Con 1: Photoshop don’t have presets for color corrections and color grades that work as easily as the ones in Lightroom.
❌ Con 2: Less support to high quality graphics in photos and videos

Photoshop is a great application used by many professional photographers and designers for image editing, from photos to creating high-quality graphics. In addition, is a really useful tool to make timelapses from your photos.

Here you can find an useful video with a step-by-step guide about how you can do really great timelapse inside Photoshop:

Adobe Lightroom

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️[4/5]
Price: $9,99/month

✅ Pro 1: Simple and beautiful interface
✅ Pro 2: Really useful to create photography timelapses with automatic sync to cloud storage
✅ Pro 3: Powerful filters and photo editing

❌ Con 1: this software can only build timelapses from already taken photos, putting them together as a video
❌ Con 2: Limited sharing options

Lightroom is an easy-to-use tool with everything you need to create, edit, organise, store, and share your photos, including cool features like sliders and presets that will make your photos look just as you imagined. In addition, is a really useful tool to make timelapses from your photos.

Here you can find an useful video with a step-by-step guide about how you can do really great timelapse inside Lightroom:

LRTimelapse

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ [5/5]
Price: $146.26 one-time-payment (Private License)

✅ Pro 1: it’s the timelapse photography software most widely used, so there’s a bunch of resources to learn how to use it
✅ Pro 2: really intuitive for pro photographers that already know how to do timelapse photography

❌ Con 1: Lightroom is a must to use this software and it’s not really intuitive for beginners
❌ Con 2: Pro version can be expensive

LRTimelapse is a tool that gives a simple solution for time lapse editing, keyframing, grading and rendering and it’s available for Windows and Mac, taking your time lapse results to the next level.

Here you can find an useful video with a step-by-step guide about how you can do really great timelapse with LRTimelapse:

iMovie

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ [4/5]
Price: FREE

✅ Pro 1: Works similarly with desktop, iPad and iPhone
✅ Pro 2: intuitive controls that make it really easy for beginners
✅ Pro 3: Auto save and easy share to social platforms

❌ Con 1: only available for Apple devices
❌ Con 2: Controls are a little imprecise, even more in smaller screens and the app can crash if the process is too overwhelming

iMovie is a video editing platform, that supports video creators with high quality effects, audio editing, supporting 4k resolution and other features to easily create videos and movies. In addition, is a really useful tool to make timelapses from your photos.

On top of that, we have a tutorial on how to make a speedpaint with iMovie and another one where we teach you how to slow down a timelapse with iMovie.

Adobe Premiere Pro

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ [4/5]
Price: $20,99/month

✅ Pro 1: this software is really intuitive for beginners and will make any humble production shine.
✅ Pro 2: Complete freedom and resources for video editing.
✅ Pro 3: Full integration with other adobe products and other plug ins.

❌ Con 1: Even if the tool is intuitive, it has a long learning curve
❌ Con 2: It can crash easily if the work gets too overcoming.

Premiere Pro is a great tool for video editing, looking for social sharing, TV, and film. This software includes creative tools, integrations and other resources to help you edit all footage into polished films and videos.

Here you can find an useful video with a step-by-step guide about how you can do really great timelapse inside Adobe Premiere Pro:

GoPro Studio

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ [4/5]
Price: FREE

✅ Pro 1: easy controls and visual adjustment
✅ Pro 2: great experience for editing, shooting and publishing with little experience.
✅ Pro 3: easy to share files

❌ Con 1: Video and audio difficult to synchronize
❌ Con 2: No view options, being difficult to manage more than one clip

GoPro Studio is a simple app made to edit GoPro videos with simple features, being able to add or remove music, trim sections, create fast or slow motions or add graphics and text.

Here you can find an useful video with a step-by-step guide about how you can do really great timelapse inside GoPro Studio:

Conclusion

In this post, we’ve shown you different timelapse software options. Here, we have reviewed the following software, Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Hustl, LRTimelapse, iMovie, Premiere Pro and GoPro Studio. If you were wondering what to choose, we hope we’ve given you some ideas!

Record screen timelapses effortlessly

Gopro Time Lapse Photo To Video Imovie Software

With Hustl, you don't have to worry about editing or speeding up the video – just press record and you'll get a ready-to-share timelapse of your screen to show off your work.

Note: This article provides basic information about how time-lapse videos are created and includes a tutorial (at end of post) showing how to use still images (taken with any camera) to make a time-lapse video with iMovie. If you are looking for detailed instructions for producing a time-lapse video with a GoPro (and GoPro Studio), see this article and video tutorial: Time Lapse Tutorial for the GoPro Hero 3+. Another video tutorial shows how to use a montage of still images instead of video footage to make a video: How to Make a Video without Film Footage: Montage Revisited.

Time-lapse photography is a technique whereby a scene in real time is sped up to play in a much shorter time-frame. An example might be a shoreline experiencing a tidal cycle in which the tide rises and falls, covering and exposing a mudflat, over a 24 hour period. A film of such a scene in real time would be too long to watch, and it would be difficult for a viewer to see the gradual changes in the water level. Instead, if the scene were sped up to play in a shorter time period, the change would be obvious. Hours of change would be compressed into a few minutes, i.e., lapsing time.

The time-lapse technique is particularly useful for displaying biological, chemical, and/or physical processes that are naturally too slow for the human eye to see in real time: a seed germinating, a flower unfolding, a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly, colors changing seasonally in a deciduous tree, a glacier melting, a shoreline eroding, storm clouds gathering, and many other events that take hours, days, or weeks to unfold. If you wish to study or display such changes on film, you must know how to create a time-lapse film.

Below is an example of a time-lapse of decaying fruit.

To begin to understand how to capture and edit a time-lapse film, let’s analyze how the above film was created. A single photo was taken (from exactly the same position) of a bowl of fruit every 40 minutes for 74 days. This means that 36 photos were taken per day, and 2664 photos in all would be captured. If each photo represents a 1-sec frame in a film and all 2664 photos were played at 30 fps (frames per second), then the final length of the film would be 1.48 minutes (the actual length of the film was 1.37 min, perhaps because the frame duration was set to slightly less than 1 sec or not all photos were used).

Note that you can also create a time-lapse film by speeding up a video clip; however, this approach is usually limited to short-duration events (e.g., an hour) that can be filmed and later sped up to play in a few seconds. You can also splice together film clips shot at brief intervals throughout an event and then time-compress during editing by shortening the duration of the final film. In the video below, a decaying pig carcass was filmed at the bottom of the ocean over a 9 day period; the film appears to have been created by splicing together short film clips captured each day.

However, the creation of a time-lapse film with still images is the most common (and easiest) approach. To create a good time-lapse film, there are a few important points to keep in mind:

1. Use a tripod to ensure that all photos are taken from exactly the same position/angle. Otherwise, the resultant film will not be smooth.

2. Shoot the photos in manual mode; otherwise, the camera will try to automatically adjust for changes in light levels, etc.

Gopro Time Lapse Photo To Video Imovie Converter

3. Carefully calculate the time interval needed between photos. This calculation will depend on the process being filmed, how fast the changes occur, and how smooth you want the resultant film to be. The more photos per unit time, the smoother the result (if you want to create a jerky effect, then scale back). If you are shooting cloud movement, you might take one photo per minute. If you are filming something that unfolds over days or weeks, then you might take only one photo per day. For example, filming one year in the life of a tree might require only one photo per day (365 photos in all). If each photo is played for 2 sec at 30 fps, the resultant film would be 24.33 sec in length.

4. Be sure you have sufficient battery life and memory to accommodate all the photos. Use jpg and adjust the size so that you get optimum quality without running out of memory.

5. Before you launch into your project, do some test shots to make sure everything is set up correctly and you are getting what you need. It’s a good idea to take a few photos and edit them to get an idea of how the final version will look and to spot any problems.

In the tutorial below, I show how to turn a series of still images into a time-lapse video using iMovie (direct link to video on YouTube).

I used a point and shoot camera to take the photos manually, but you can use any still camera and purchase hardware and software that will automate the shooting for you. Also, you can even shoot time-lapse photos with your iPhone; there are apps that will help you do this (note: I’ve not tried all of these, so can’t attest to their quality or ease of use):

Lapse It Pro will record photos and render the time-lapse film (this is the app that I use–see this post in which I test it out)

Gopro Time Lapse Photo To Video Imovie Download

iTimelapse will take the photos and assist in rendering the final film (note: some customer complaints).

Gopro Time Lapse Photo To Video Imovie Free

Gorillacam will only do the shooting; you have to do the video rendering yourself (note: some customer complaints).

Are you interested in learning more techniques like this? If so, you may be interested in my ebook, The Scientist Videographer, which is an electronic guidebook packed with information, tips, and tutorials and designed for the 21st century scientist, teacher, and student. Available in iTunes Store (fully interactive version for iPad, iPhone, & Mac), Smashwords (text version), and Amazon Kindle (text version).