Long Exposure from Video

Drag & Drop or Click to Select a Video

MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV; a tripod shot stacks cleanest

Tip: paste a video file from clipboard (Ctrl/⌘+V).

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Settings are written to the URL as you change them. Nothing differs from the defaults yet.

Turn a few seconds of video into a single long exposure, a light-trail image or a photo with the passers-by removed. Every frame of the range is decoded and combined into one image, pixel by pixel, in the way the chosen mode says.

The four modes

Average is the long exposure. Each pixel becomes the mean of its values across the range, so water goes to mist, clouds to streaks, crowds to a faint haze, and anything that did not move stays as sharp as a single frame. It is also a noise reducer: averaging 30 frames of a static scene cuts random sensor noise by a factor of about five.

Lighten keeps the brightest value each pixel reached, which draws the path of every light that moved: car headlights, a sparkler, stars. Darken keeps the darkest, which traces dark objects crossing a bright scene.

Median keeps the value each pixel had most often. Anything that passed through for a minority of the frames, a person walking across, a car, is replaced by what was behind it. It needs the frames held in memory, so it uses up to 32 frames spread over the range and caps the output at 1280 px.

Range and sampling

Drag the handles on the timeline to set the range. A long exposure of 2 to 5 seconds is usually enough; longer ranges smooth motion further and take proportionally longer to decode. Use every Nth frame skips frames for Average, Lighten and Darken, which speeds up a long range when the motion is slow enough that consecutive frames look alike.

Alignment

The frames must line up exactly. A tripod shot does; a hand-held one does not, and the stack blurs the whole scene. Stabilize the clip first with the video stabilizer when there is no steady source. Changes in exposure or white balance during the take show up as uneven brightness in an average, so lock both when shooting for stacking.

Output

The result is one image at the chosen size, saved as PNG, JPEG or WebP. The preview under the button shows it after the stack finishes; the file is downloaded at the same time. From there it is an image like any other and can go on to any of the image tools.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does frame stacking do?

It decodes every frame of the chosen range and folds them into one image. Average gives the same result a long exposure would: moving things blur into streaks or vanish, still things stay sharp. Lighten keeps the brightest value each pixel ever had, which is how light trails are made. Darken keeps the darkest. Median keeps the value each pixel had most of the time, which removes anything that passed through.

How do I get a smooth long exposure of water or clouds?

Use Average over a few seconds of a tripod shot. The longer the range, the smoother the motion becomes, and the still parts stay exactly as sharp as one frame.

Why is Median limited?

A median needs every sample of a pixel at once, so the frames must stay in memory. The tool keeps up to 32 frames spread evenly over the range and works at 1280 px or smaller for it. Average, Lighten and Darken keep one running image and have no such limit.

Does a hand-held clip work?

The frames must line up, so a hand-held clip blurs everything, not only what moved. Run the video stabilizer first, or shoot from a tripod.

Which format should I save in?

PNG keeps the stacked image exactly. JPEG and WebP are smaller and are fine for sharing; set the quality slider above 90 to keep the smooth gradients a long exposure produces.

Explore Our Tools

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Video Frame Extractor

Pull still images out of a video: N frames spread over a range, one every N seconds, the frames at listed times, every frame, or the single frame at the playhead, saved as JPEG, PNG, or WebP and zipped. Or lay them out as a contact sheet with a timecode under each.

Video Stabilizer

Smooth a shaky hand-held clip. The motion between frames is measured, the camera path is averaged over a window you set, and every frame is moved onto the smoothed path, zoomed enough to hide the edges. Side-to-side and up-and-down shake only, up to the crop you allow.

Image Denoiser

Reduce luminance and color noise in JPEG, PNG, or WebP photos with edge-aware smoothing, a relative noise scale, and detail protection.

Light Rays Effect

Cast rays of light from a bright window, sky or lamp across a photo. Pick the light's position, the brightness that counts as a light source, how far the rays reach, how fast they fade and their colour.

Video Compressor

Reduce a video's file size by choosing a quality level or a target size in MB. Set the codec (H.264, VP9, or AV1), scale the frame down, and re-encode or remove the audio.

Video Converter

Convert video between MP4, MOV, WebM, and MKV. Streams that already fit the new container are copied without re-encoding; the rest are re-encoded to H.264, VP9, AAC, or Opus.

Glow Video Effect

Make the bright parts of every video frame glow: bloom around lights and highlights with an optional color tint. Set strength, radius, threshold, and glow color; the radius scales with the output size. Exports MP4 or WebM with the original soundtrack.

Lens Flare Video Effect

Add a lens flare to a video: a hot core, a long halo, veiling glare across the frame, diffraction spikes, and aperture ghosts, all from a light source you place. Set position, intensity, halo size, and spikes. Exports MP4 or WebM with the original soundtrack.

Colored Pencil Video Effect

Turn a video into a moving colored pencil drawing: dark strokes along edges, light paper where the frame is flat, and angled pencil texture. Set detail, color retention, paper texture, and stroke angle. Exports MP4 or WebM with the original soundtrack.

Orton Video Effect

Screen a blurred, brightened copy of every video frame over the sharp original for a dreamy glow that keeps detail. Set blur radius, glow amount, soft layer exposure, saturation, and shadow protection. Exports MP4 or WebM with the original soundtrack.

Pinhole Video Effect

Make a video look shot through a lensless pinhole camera: soft everywhere, steep light falloff toward the corners, faded blacks, and grain that moves on every frame. Set falloff, image circle, softness, grain, and fade. Exports MP4 or WebM with the original soundtrack.

VHS Video Effect

Make video look like a worn VHS tape: shifted color, a soft picture, scanlines, tracking errors, dropouts, and head-switching noise at the bottom of the frame, all moving from frame to frame. Exports MP4 or WebM with the soundtrack.