LUMINANCE AVERAGING FUNCTION IN STOP MOTIONMAKER ADVANCE

This function was designed to average out the whole image ‘flicker’ which can be sometimes prevalent in images taken for stop motion with a digital still camera. This is because the image sensor of  a digital still camera is more sensitive to changes in the camera iris or lighting.

First, after taking your still images, leave the ‘Still Image Window’ open, or batch load them via the ‘holding directory’ and the ‘Import from Holding Dir’ button.

If there is a lot of movement in the images, then select a low average number to ensure the movement is properly tracked. If there is not much movement, then a larger average number may give better results.   This function may not remove all ‘flicker’ as it may be isolated within the image and be caused by reflections or other sources.

With the ‘Luminance Window’ Open, select the Still window to load the number of frames.  The application will automatically try to pick a suitable average frame number.

Follow the procedure as detailed in the images below.

Note: The Red, Green and Blue lines are the current frame average luminance and the white, yellow and purple lines are the predicted new luminance.

Now loop your images to note the changes.  If you have made a mistake, just reload your images by selecting ‘Open’ (you did save - didn’t you) and try again with different settings.