Photoshop - Aligning layers

I have a situation where I'm making a stop motion video, with images I took free hand. When I put the images in to the editing software it is jumpy, and painfully apparent that I didn't use a tripod. I know you can align pictures with photoshop, and I've explored the auto-align/align layers tutorials, but it is not helping put out what I want. What I need is for every image to be lined up perfectly, and then to save the pictures individually so I can drag them back in to editing. I dont want to fuse the layers, I dont want to make a panorama, all I want to do is fix a point in my images so I can line them all up to it, save them separately to put back in to FCP, making my finished product seem movie-esque..Help?

hi,

couldn't we just - hide all layers leaving 2 visible .. move the bottom visible layer to the point you want .. set opacity of the layer on top to 50% or so .. move the top layer accordingly, lining it up to the your fist visible layer .. and then - continue on till all your layers line ..

or, i guess you were just looking for the fast way .. illustrator ALIGN works best .. import all your layers out of photoshop as jpgs using the save for web .. in illustrator, place them all into separate layers .. align them however you want there ..

good luck ..

This is a very tedious method, and I don't think it's good to assume that this person owns illustrator either.

I do believe there is a much easier way:
Note: I used CS5 for this, I'm not 100% sure if it's the same way in previous versions.

1. Open up photoshop.

2. File >> Scripts >> Load Files into Stack >> "Browse..."

3. Location you images, select them all (hold shift, then click your first, and then last image)

NOTE: Once you hit OK, it may take a long time depending on the size and amount of pictures involved.

4. Select all of your layers.

5. Edit >> Auto-Align Layers

There you go!

If this does NOT work, you will, unfortunately, have to do it the long and tedious way. I suggest using a tripod next time, they're a life saver!

oh I do like this .. I have saved that walk through

Depending how many frames your movie is, using photoshop can takes ages.

I might assume that simply aligning your individual camera images isn't what you require to fix physical hand camera shake.

A fast way to solve this problem, might be to use After Effects. You could then:

1. Import your pictures as an image sequence (thus creating a movie file in a matter of seconds ;-)

2. You could then use the Motion Tracking tool, to create track points in your images. (After Effects can then analyse the where the points are throughout your movie).

The advantage of doing it this way is that its fairly automated, easy to crop the video and output after to any format.

I've done this in AE CS4 before and would recommend you have a go if you have access to the software.

its PAINFUL is auto align isnt of much use .... do it manually and later u can save layers separately....