Automator App for choosing every nth photo from a time lapse

[eatonediting]

Hello all,

I have an education in Computer Science, but very little experience with Applescript and/or Automator so I'd like to get someone's help. My camera can be set up to take a photo once every second for a time lapse, but I sometimes need a time lapse of 1 photo every 5 seconds or once every 10 seconds, 15 seconds, and so on.

What I planned to try was creating an Automator App/Workflow where I could specify a folder and a number of photos (n) to skip as input and it would take the contents of that folder and select every nth photo and copy it to a new folder. For example, if I said 5 it would choose and copy every 5th photo to simulate a camera taking one photo every 5 seconds.

Can anyone suggest how I would accomplish this or resources on where to go to learn what I need to create it myself? Thanks in advance.

 

[eatonediting]

I figured out a dirt simple way to do this without needing Automator and now feel a bit silly for asking in the first place. Still, I think something like what I initially asked about would be an interesting case study for me to learn some things in Automator with so if anyone sees this and has any ideas I'd still be interested in your thoughts.

Here's what I did. Open the folder the files are saved in. Change the view to the icon grid mode and sort by Name so the files all appear in a grid. Change the size of the window such that the number of columns matches your number n. You can also adjust the icon size if your screen size is too limiting. (So if I wanted every tenth photo, I'd make it ten columns across) Then just click and drag to highlight an entire column of photos using the mouse/trackpad and copy/move the files to another location. Simple.

 

[eatonediting]

To further expand on that idea, lets say you needed every 60th photo. It's not likely that adjusting the window size and icon size would fully accommodate your needs. You could do the same procedure as many times as you needed to achieve the number you wanted. Take every tenth file like I explained above. Then do the same thing on the files you copied/moved adjusting the number of columns to select every 6th photo this time. 1/10 x 1/6 = 1/60 (every 60th photo)

Hopefully somebody finds this helpful like I did.

 

[Toby Time Lapse]

Hi 'eatonediting'.

Only just discovered your post. I am currently trying to find a proper solution for this, too.

Your solution is pretty good, but i'm trying to work out how to do it AFTER importing to Lightroom, in other words, within Lightroom.

The current project i'm working on contains over 20,000 photos (so far.... it's ongoing) so quite a lot of files to deal with.

I've fiddled around with a Lightroom plugin called 'Any Filter' which has been pretty handy with using certain metadata to select photos within a specified range eg. between 10am and 2pm. However, it doesn't seem to have the capabilities to simply select every (n)th photo!

Have you discovered anything else since posting this on here? Would love to know!

 

[Toby Time Lapse]

In case anyone is still searching for ways to do this -

https://discussions.apple.com/message/23761665#message23761665

I found this to be the best way.