Software for converting a series of jpg or raw files into an animation

Question

I've tried Imagej, MakeAVI, and Virtualdub Imagej gives me a black movie a few seconds long. MakeAVI gives me an "unreadable" file. Virtualdub sort of works but the pictures are very pixelated.

Hours of trying various options and waiting for processing, just results in unusable files.

Is there somewhere a program that can take a directory full of jpg or raw (sony alpha 77) images and make a movie file that actually works, and doesn't look horrible?

Do you have stop-action stills that you want to string together to form a claymation or similar, or are you talking about making a slideshow that displays each photo for a few seconds and then transitions to another photo? — Lawrence, Sep 12 '19 at 00:02
Stills taken at intervals of a landscape, similar to claymation — user103218, Sep 12 '19 at 00:04
Here’s an instructables discussion from a long time ago, and a more recent list I found from a google search. Note that the recent list is hosted on the website of #1 of the list. — Lawrence, Sep 12 '19 at 00:19
I'd go for any video editing software. I believe there is one free included in Windows. Or you could buy something — Andreas, Sep 12 '19 at 03:48
What Windows software can assemble a sequence of photos into a timelapse? – How do I create a timelapse video from a collection of photographs in Linux? – Which software to assemble a time-lapse from images? — xiota, Sep 12 '19 at 06:50
Ok, I have MonkeyJam, and it does result in output I can play in VLC. Takes a LONG time to process 512 frames, and I need to work through which codec and settings are best, but at least I have a path now that doesn't just heat up the room and waste time. Thanks! — user103218, Sep 12 '19 at 21:51
Possible duplicate of Which software to assemble a time-lapse from images? — inkista, Oct 30 '19 at 23:55

Rafael · Answer 1 · 2020-01-02T17:42:34.960

I am worried here. Especially with the pixelated one. A program like Virtual dub takes your image sequence and just assemble it. If you have some sort of pixelation is not because of the program but of the settings you are giving.

Prepare the files.

Let's start from step 1.

I. Not every program will read a raw file, first convert it to something more useful. JPG to be specific.

Irfanview does a pretty good job batch "converting" RAW images from Nikon and Canon into JPG. I ignore if the Sony ones work as well.

II. Resample all images into a specific dimension before stitching them into a video. Crop and resample the images to the desired output. Video files some times need some specific dimensions.

You can even sharpen them a bit, and rename them to a numbered sequence... do not add too much compression on the JPG files, be careful there.

III. Now use these new files as source files for the program to stitch into a video.

IV. Now take VirtualDub2 and pull the image sequence, assign the correct frame rate and codec and export a video. Export as mp4 h264. Done. VirtualDub has not been updated since ages, but VirtualDub2 has.

If it still does not work as desired... (I do not see how), take Davinci Resolve, which needs a bit more resources, on the disk and on the system, but it is a free state of the art program and just pull the first frame of the image sequence.

V. If you need stabilization, prepare the images with more resolution than needed and then you can even stabilize it on Davinci Resolve.

Reading this sometime later I am wondering if the images have a nonstandard size for a particular video format. Some video formats need the video to be, let's say a multiple of 4.

Software for converting a series of jpg or raw files into an animation

1 Answers1