Timelapse picture series uneven brightness on export

Question

Hi, I have attempted to process a short timelapse sequence from 82 ARW (Sony) images. I applied settings in Lightroom Classic, synced to all and did an export to JPG. Unexpectedly, the files randomly differ in brightness, and in color tone, from image to image. Surprisingly, this is also visible on the images stripe in Lightroom. When scrolling from image to image I can also see that even histogram looks different from image to image. When I export the same images sequence in other program, like Irfan, without processing, the images are precisely even. What is wrong here?

In past times, when using Adobe Camera RAW in PS CS2 or 3, I do not remember, I had completely no issues. I processed hundreds of timelapse sequences, and the only differences between frames were from imperfections of mechanical shutter in SLR I used. Now this looks completely like crap.

Conrad_C · Answer

Two questions:Which raw profile is applied to these images? (For example, Adobe Landscape, Camera Standard…) Which Basic panel adjustments are applied the most? (For example, Exposure, Highlights, Dehaze…)  What’s behind those specific questions is that there are certain adjustments that are content-aware, which are great when editing a single photo meant to be viewed by itself. But being content-aware means the same value can have a slightly different effect on adjacent images if the content has changed even just a little. Obviously a frame-by-frame variation may cause unwanted contrast flickering in time lapses. If that is the cause of the unevenness, then for a full explanation you will want to watch the excellent video below by the developer of LRTimelapse software. He also explains how to minimize the variations. Additionally, he describes why some raw profiles can be a contributing factor to unwanted sudden color shifts (that’s why I asked the profile question). The likely reason you don’t see it from IrfanView or in Camera Raw/Photoshop from 15 years ago is that many of the newer adjustment options that can contribute to flickering did not exist back then and probably don’t exist in IrfanView. They would use the simple, traditional linear adjustments such as Levels or Curves, not advanced image-adaptive adjustments. And that is what leads to the answer explained in the video: In Lightroom Classic or Camera Raw, to minimize flickering in time lapses, favor linear adjustments over adaptive (and favor a Camera profile over an Adobe profile).

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