Best Time Lapse Software Mac

Time-lapse photography is a technique that takes photos or videos at a lower frame rate and then plays them at a normal or faster rate. In a time-lapse video, the process of slowly changing objects or scenes is compressed into a short period of time, presenting a wonderfully speeded-up picture that is usually invisible to naked eyes. It's commonly used in shooting day to night transitions, urban scenes, natural scenes and many more.

However, not all cameras have a time-lapse function. Therefore, you need to take a series of photos and combine them into a video using time lapse software. And this article has carefully picked up 14 best time lapse editing software for your reference. Let's Explore!

Continue reading for instructions on how to use the Final Cut Pro X software to edit a time-lapse video. Best Final Cut Pro X (FCP) Alternative to Process Time-lapses FCP is not free, you can get a 30-day trial version or pay $299 for the full package with all its features from the Mac Store. Nikon Time Lapse Software Self-Timer mode enables you to take up to nine pictures with one press of the shutter button, timing the frames at intervals of a half second to 3 seconds. If you want to record more frames or enjoy more flexibility over the interval between images, bail out of Self-Timer mode and instead enable Interval Timer Shooting. Up to now, photographers generally had two methods for adding motion to time-lapse sequences. One approach has been to mount the camera on a motorized track or head. These systems are often heavy and restrictive. The other method applies video-editing software to digitally crop and slide.

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#1. Adobe Premiere Pro

Compatibility: Windows, macOS

Mac

Pricing: $20.99 per month

Arguably one of the best time lapse software, Adobe Premiere Pro is professional and feature-wise software to create stunning time lapse videos. It can work with a wide range of file formats and involves tons of customizable tools, as well as third-party plugins to let you fly through your workflow.

Making a time lapse video from photos in Premiere Pro is simple. Create a new bin and import all your photos to the bin at the get-go. To ensure the video playing without any glitch, you will need to sort the photo files by name. Next, you will create a sequence with proper video settings and add all your material to the timeline. Then you will be able to get a smooth and nice time-lapse video.

Apart from that, you can find out other nice-to-have features like scaling, stabilization, color grading, etc. in the arsenal of Premiere Pro to make your video look better.

What we love about it

  • It can make a time lapse video from photos or convert video to time lapse.
  • A wide array of file formats supported.
  • Lots of plugins to extend.
  • Make quick adjustments like adding music, color grading, stabilization, zoom in/out, etc.
  • 7-day free trial to the new.

#2. VideoProc Movie

Compatibility: Windows, macOS

Pricing: Free

With a smooth and simple UI, VideoProc Movie offers a great speed-changing feature to help you make a time-laspe video. It can emulate the time lapse or hyperlapse effect by increasing the playback speed of original videos. What you need to do is to navigate to where your video is located and import your video to the program, alter the speed of your video, and mute all video tracks.

Once the speed change is complete, you can preview the changed video in the viewer. You can enable cropping, cutting, trimming, adding subtitles, or applying filters, texts to your videos. At last, export the video with your needed format and save it to your computer.

What we love about it

  • Turn normal videos into time lapse.
  • Offers various of playback speed.
  • Cropper, splitter, filters, stabilizer, fish-eye remover for video enhancements.
  • Handle processor-intensive media with full GPU acceleration.

#3. Adobe Photoshop

Compatibility: Windows, macOS, iPadOS

Best Time Lapse Software Mac

Pricing: $20.99 per month

Deemed as the most powerful image editing program, Adobe Photoshop, virtually, can be also used to create videos. Though this ability is not as powerful as it does in Premiere Pro, it still is a good solution to compile a high definition time lapse sequence. The sweet spot is that you are able to modify the ISO, white balance, exposure, contrast, saturation, etc. of images in Raw format directly in Photoshop, so that you can yield the best result of time lapse videos.

What we love about it

  • Deep adjustments like ISO, white balance, exposure, contrast, temperature, etc. to the images.
  • It's pretty easy to resize images and make them fit into the frame.
  • You are able to add a music track in Photoshop with nothing else needed.

#4. iMovie

Compatibility: macOS

Pricing: Free

iMovie is a Mac-only photo and video editing software that gives you highly functional and cool capabilities like theme-based templates, cropper, speed alternation, text layer, image stabilization and more. And creating a time-lapse video in iMovie takes much time than other tools in this list, largely because iMovie doesn't edit videos frame to frame in the timeline and the minimum duration in iMovie is 0.1 second, which is nearly 10 frames. Therefore, you need to export the time-lapse sequence first and speed up the clip later on.

What we love about it

  • Free and frequent updates.
  • An intuitive interface makes tools pleasant to use.
  • Incredible video stabilization, frame cropper, color balance, etc.
  • Exported files are high-quality.

#5. Shotcut

Compatibility: Windows, macOS, Linux

Pricing: Free and open source

Putting into the open source league, Shotcut is widely considered one of the best time lapse video editing software at no cost. Though it is primarily geared toward video editors expecting to create videos, Shotcut is also packed with a number of key image editing features for making time lapse videos from photos.

What we love about it

  • It's completely free and works across platforms.
  • Keep your sequence at one frame per picture.
  • Give your videos touch-up by speed alternation, video/audio filters and others.

#6. LRTimelapse

Compatibility: Windows, macOS

Pricing: Private License for $116.62; Pro License for $293.32

LRTimelapse is a professional and flexible software designed for making time lapse videos with the integration with Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Camera RAW, and Adobe After Effects. The real benefits of it are that it can remove ugly and distracting flickering in your image sequence and connect all the images with a smooth change in white balance, exposure, highlights, temperature, etc. in one click.

What we love about it

  • Seamlessly works with Lightroom, Adobe Bridge, After Effects with the LRTExport plugin.
  • Workflow indicators let you have a clear vision of your workflow position.
  • Luminance curves guide you to make steady brightness throughout.
  • A high-performance video rendering engine that can handle high-quality videos up to 8K and supports popular formats like MP4, H.264, ProRes, H.265, etc.

#7. Panolapse

Compatibility: Windows, macOS

Pricing: $99.95

How to timelapse a video with motion? Generally, you can use camera sliders to shoot smooth motion control time-lapse video. However, in addition to the price, the heavy and bulky slides could be prohibitive to some. Don't have one? No sweat. You can use Panolapse to motion to time lapse videos in a minute. More so, it can work with fisheyes lens and 360° panoramic images.

What we love about it

  • Support almost any lens, including normal, fisheyes, equirectangular, thoby and more.
  • Create real-world rotational panning.
  • Built-in deflicker guarantees for an even brightens of your projects.

#8. Time-Lapse Tool

Compatibility: Windows

Pricing: Home License for $69; Business License for $99

Time-Lapse tool is a Windows-only software dedicated to making time lapse videos by combining multiple still images. Once you've imported your images, you will find there are many options to play with, covering color adjustments, transitions, shooting info, adding watermark, rotation, zoom & pan, as well as deflicker that helps reduce unstable brightness. Plus, you can export time-lapse videos to 4K, Full HD 1080p, H.264, and other formats.

Best time lapse software mac

What we love about it

  • Modern and easy-to-use interface.
  • More than 20 visual effects can be applied.
  • Adding of watermark and camera information for professional protection.
  • Support a wide range of file formats.

#9. SkyStudio Pro

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 or 10

Pricing: Free

Let's say you want an application to film yourself at work, at study, or even as a CCTV that safeguards the security of your home. SkyStudioPro can be the best choice for you. It's a piece of freeware that uses a webcam or external cameras to capture time-lapse videos with motion detection. Simply put, motion detection is a feature that increases the video frame rate for a short period of time when it detects an object or sound is being captured, so that you can see the object in slow motion clearly.

What we love about it

  • Compatible with both webcams and external cameras.
  • Work with two capture devices simultaneously.
  • A scheduled auto-shot is available.
  • Motion detection slows down objects in motion.

#10. MakeAVI

Compatibility: Windows

Pricing: Free

If you're looking for a tool to stitching images together, you can opt for the free MakeAVI tool. It offers a quick method to compile JPGs, PNG, BMP, as well as other formats into an AVI. What's more, you are allowed to crop images to needed dimensions. Unfortunately, MakeAVI functions well when handling less than a thousand images but it could generate glitches in your time lapse video when working with over a thousand photos.

What we love about it

  • Very flat learning curve.
  • It can make time lapse videos as well as stop-motion animations.
  • Video cropper and resizer provided.
  • It reads JPGs, PNG, BMP and other image formats.

How Do You Make a Time-Lapse Video?

a. Choose a place to shoot

There are three factors when choosing a location to shoot time lapse videos: moving objects, a great night scene, and no or less strong lights. Among the moving objects can be the clouds and traffic, as well as changes in shadow, because time-lapse videos will be no different than regular videos if without variations. And strong lights are one of the elements to avoid in capturing day to night transitions, otherwise, it will be very troublesome in post-production.

b. Prepare the tools needed

  • A camera (it can be a DSLR, a smart phone, an action camera, etc.);
  • A stabilizer (it can be a tripod, a gimbal, and camera sliders) that helps capture steady images;
  • Memory cards;
  • Power banks, ND filters (if available) and others.

c. Set up your shooting mode

Best Time Lapse Software For Mac

  • Always shooting in Raw.
  • Set to manual focus (MF).
  • Fixed aperture, shutter speed and ISO.
  • A rough idea of setting intervals: moving clouds with an interval between 2 seconds; sunset between 2~5 seconds; growing plants between 120 seconds, etc.

Conclusion

This article has summarized 10 different time lapse video editing software with different prices, features, levels of use, as well as a few tips on how to shoot a time lapse video. Wish you can get some inspirations from this article, and you can share it on your social media if you consider it is helpful, thanks in advance!

Making a regular time-lapse video is time-consuming.

You need essential equipment like a suitable camera, large storage space for the photos, a strong stand or tripod, and favorable weather conditions if you are shooting outside.

It takes time to master the art of making a time-lapse video, so be patient and keep trying.

Do you want to make a time-lapse video, but don’t have the time or hardware?

  1. Jul 23, 2019 So if we change it from 100% to 800%; it is going to playback 8X faster and that will result in a kind of stop-motion or time-lapse effect. The downside of this technique is that your video needs to be at least 20 – 30 seconds long to work with else you might end up with a couple of seconds of time-lapse footage after editing.
  2. Dec 30, 2015 In this video, I turn a series of images from my GoPro into a time-lapse video. This includes cropping and scaling the images to convert them from 4:3 to 16:9. Video Notes: https://www.rickmakes.

Oct 30, 2012 Time Lapse Assembler allows you to create movies from a sequence of images. Provide it with a folder containing sequentially named JPEG images and it will produce a Quicktime compatible movie file for use in iMovie or other editing software. Exports MPEG, H.264, and RAW movies; Select between 15, 24, and 30 fps.

Well, don’t worry, as there are several tools available online to help you create a fake time-lapse effect from your normal speed videos. Check the steps below.

1. Movavi Video Editor (Recommended)

This app is available on Windows PC and Mac.

Movavi is an exceptional video and slideshow editor that combines photo and video clips and then applies effects and filters to transform them into a mini shareable video.

Best Time Lapse Software Mac 2018

Using the Video Speed Tool in Movavi Video Editor to Create a Fake Time-Lapse effect.

Simulating the time lapse effect by using the Video speed Toll in Movavi is quite simple. Once you have imported the video clips in Movavi, follow the simple steps below:

Step1. Open up Movavi, enter Full Feature Mode. When one, import the video clip to Movavi.

Step2. Drag the video clip to the video track on the timeline.

Step3. Select the video clip on the timeline and right click it. Choose the Edit option from the drop-down menu to enter the editing panel. Now, drag the slider tool next to the speed tool. You will be able to speed up the video up to 100X.

When you are done, click the Export button and save the final video.

2. Filmora

The Action Cam Tool in Filmora allows you to hasten up your video without re-encoding. This means the quality of the video remains intact without any change after exporting. Here is how to properly convert a standard video to a time-lapse with it:

Step1. Download and install the Filmora trial version from the official website

Step2. Open up Filmora, click on Action Cam tool to enter the editing panel

Step3. Click on Import an Action Cam Video to import your video clip

Step4. Click on the speed icon and click the Add Marker button. This will mark a frame on the timeline. Now, carefully drag the marker all the way over the target video like below. This will apply the time lapse effect to all selected frames.

Next, drag the slider under the Speed tool to speed up the video according to your desire.

When you are done, click the Export button to save the final video. If you still want, speed up the video more than the maximum value it offers, just export the video first, and then repeat the steps above to further accelerate it.

Best time lapse software for mac

As mentioned above, the Action Cam tool in Filmora will process your video without re-encoding or reducing the quality of the video.

Best Time Lapse Software Mac

Software To Make Time Lapse Video Mac Download

3. Adobe Premier Pro

Often times, if a video is too large and we do not want to use every frame in our normal video, we want to pretend a picture was taken and stitch them together. We can go to the effect panel of the Adobe Premier Pro to simulate a real time-lapse effect. The following steps allow you to create a fake time-lapse video.

Step1. Go to the Effect panel and search for Posterize time. Click on it and drag it onto your video clip on the timeline

This allows you to adjust the frame rate of the clip, and it does so in a way that it posterizes the time and separates the frames.

Step2. At the default 24 frame rate, it will look normal but when you lower the frame rate from24 fps to 1 or 2 fps and press play, it going to allow you see only one frame per one whole second. Now, we have virtually created an effect where a picture was taken every one second.

However, we want to get rid of all the extra space because we don’t want to play a frame every second. So what you can do is:

Step3. Right-click on the clip; go to speed/duration from the drop menu. Now increase thespeed, so that each frame only plays for a normal amount of time.

So if we change it from 100% to 800%; it is going to playback 8X faster and that will result in a kind of stop-motion or time-lapse effect.

Best Free Time Lapse Software

Best Time Lapse Software Mac

The downside of this technique is that your video needs to be at least 20 – 30 seconds long to work with else you might end up with a couple of seconds of time-lapse footage after editing. You have to also remember that if you employ this style, try recording for more than a minute long videos to have more information to work with. You can also play around with the balance of the frame rate and speed to get the best of a particular clip. Remember that lower the frame rate is likened to taking fewer pictures during the time and increasing it would be like stitching together more pictures in the same amount of time.

Quick Tip:

Always press R on the keyboard, this will allow you to stretch in and out to fine tune the clip or help you work within a sequence better.

Well, that is basically how you create a time-lapse effect out of a normal video.


Hey, My name is Paul – nice to e-meet you 🙂 I’m a freelance video editor who has over 4 years experiences of making all types of videos. I founded this website to provide step-by-step and easy-to-follow instructions to first-time editors or beginners like you who want to start their journey in video editing.