Aligning Multiple Images for Timeline Video

[dlyork]

Hello All, I am more or less a newbe and trying to create a timeline video of the recent solar eclipse. I have 100+ images and want to align so the sun pretty much stays at the same location throughtout the timeline video.
I have loaded all my photos into Ps via Scripts-Load Files into Stack. This works but when I try to align via Auto-Align Layers I get a error message stating images must be 40% overlay. The images are the Sun (yellow ball) and black background. The images are all slightly skewd from one another but they are close in proximity to one another (based on the sun).
I even went so far as to remove background and manually align the sun so all were very close and still no joy.
The timeline vdeo works and was able to save and play but images are not aligned so the sun bounces around significantly (which is hard to watch).

Now for the question:
Why isn't Ps allowing me to align these images?

I have attached 5 images if someone wants to try and help me resolve this issue.

Thank you in advance!

 

[IamSam]

Why isn't Ps allowing me to align these images?

Not sure, still checking on this.

Based on how you have the images cropped, the "glow" varies from image to image. I had to include a dark colored BG based on a sampled color from the images since the images are not all cropped the same. But the Sun is centered in the animation/Video. Also, this was done manually..............if no one else shows a way of automating this process, I will show how I did this in a tutorial.

 

[dlyork]

Thanks for the reply and the demo. I have 134 images I'm trying to align which is why I'm trying to automate the process. Based on what I see in Ps it should be able to do so. Just the fact that I can't makes it more of a challange I want to conquer. I started to align manually at one point but thinking I could do it automatic stopped me from finishing.
Do you know why Ps appears to have the capability but won't work with this scenario?

 

[IamSam]

Do you know why Ps appears to have the capability but won't work with this scenario?

As I stated above, not sure. Can you provide a step by step explanation of the exact workflow you are using for this process?

 

[IamSam]

Try here?????

Re: Layers do not overlap enough.

Can you post the files you're having trouble aligning? (link to cc files or dropbox) It's possible the images don't have enough unique features to align. Does it work it other sets of images?

community.adobe.com

 

[thebestcpu]

Hi @dlyork
As I understand, the align layers is pretty finicky and if the image does not have a reasonable amount of detail it does not catch onto what to align. As I have read it has problems when there are solid straight lines as well. So go figure

So a couple options.
Aligning software is used all the time in focus stacking and something other than Photoshop may do a better job.

I bet you would rather not spend that much time looking or buying other software so here is a semi-automatic workaround.

But first, I wanted to note that the images of the annular eclipse that you were photographing were not spaced out in time evenly for the sample ones you gave. Even though those five images were 3 images apart each, the time between each pair in order of time was
36 seconds,
9 seconds
57 seconds
17 seconds

So the end result even with the images aligned will not be super smooth. Wanted to say that upfront so the one understands why the animatied GIF created is not so smooth.

First, create an action in photoshop that will delete the black background of an image. There are many approaches to do this such as with Selct > Color Range and delte the background or with Layer Styles with the Blend If sliders and saving as PNG (to preserve transparency etc)

With that Action you run File > Automate > Batch and run it on all of your imges creating a second set of images with the background removed.

Then you take this new set of images and load them in the Layer Stack as you originally did and then Select all of the images as shown in the image below:




Now run the command Layer > Align > Left Edge and you get the following image:



Now run the command Layer > Align > Bottom Edge to yield the following image and Layer Stack



The Layers are now all aligned and you can create your animated GIF file. I have done so in the following GIF in the dropbox link:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/apgo...tion.gif?rlkey=73iigjkgwp7qhvg7gger2it6k&dl=0

Now as a heads up, the align process may not work on all of you images. My approach was counting on having contant edges with which to align. It is quite possible that you may have to align some Layer groups one way and another Layer group aligned to maybe the top edge when the moon crosses all the way over the the bottom of your image.

Yet this should give you a good outline of an approach that while not totally automated would take a heck of a lot of work for your project.

Hope this helps
John Wheeler