Ridge

It has taken me a t-o-r-t-u-o-u-s full English day to get this from my laptop to YouTube to Squarespace. £500 Photoshop CS3 was useless and in the end I've discovered that the easiest way to convert / compile a series of still images or time-lapse into a movie is using Windows Movie Maker (WMM) of all things (free with Windows).

I'm using XP and over the course of the day, installed, tried and eventually given up on Gimp, VLC, Bridge CS3, Photoshop CS3, Webcam Flix and various other odds and sods before happening upon WMM. The only drawback is that it only outputs WMV or AVI files, which are proprietary and enormous respectively, but aside from that it's free and very easy to use.

To compile a time-lapse:

1. Open WMP

2. Making sure that the 'Tasks' panel is visible, click on 'Import Pictures' from Menu 1, 'Capture Video'.

3. Navigate to your files, select them all and click 'Import'. (NOTE: the images must be numbered sequentially (e.g. filename1.jpg, filename2.jpg, etc...)).

4. The images will now show in the Collections panel. Select them all (Ctrl + A) and drag them down into the storyboard. The resulting movie can be previewed in the viewing panel on the right and enhanced with titles, credits and transitions from the Tasks panel.

5. For the highest quality and resolution, click on 'Save to my computer', under '3. Finish Movie' on the Tasks panel. Click the 'Other Settings' radio button and navigate down to 'DV-AVI (PAL)', click Next and complete the wizard. 

Most video sites like YouTube need a compressed format like MP4 so I downloaded Any Video Converter to convert from AVI to MP4.

See it in-situ in Monkey 164, pg22.