Still Images from Videos? question for video editors

[Misheemee]

Hi All,

I'm really new to video - I've started recording my 14yo son's Rugby Games with my iPhone and videos turn out great! I've done very basic editing of those videos (extremely basic) thus far - I normally do a lot of cropping on my iPhone.

My son was in a Rep tournament on the weekend and I leant another parent my DSLR, but she managed to switch the DSLR from AutoFocus to Manual Focus and majority of the pictures she took didn't turn out.

I realise you can probably play the video on the iPhone and screen grab, but is there a better way?

Can I/What is the best way - for me to create stills from my videos which I took on the day. Currently I have Lumafusion, and can access iMovie. I have videos on my iPhone and on my MBP.

Really appreciate your help!

 

[Jorgos]

In honesty for your situation you are just as well screengrabbing. You could import the videos into edit software, but the time and effort if you don't do it a lot is probably not worth it.

 

[iStorm]

Screenshots using the iPhone is the quick and dirty way, but it comes with some caveats:

• The resolution will be different
• The aspect ratio will be different compared to the typical 4:3 or 16:9 ratio (it'll be the ratio of your phone's display, unless you crop the screenshot)
• If the video does not fill the screen, black bars will be baked into the photo/screenshot (unless you zoom in first, or crop them out later)

On a Mac, you can export the video frame as a photo using the Photos app. It'll keep the original resolution, aspect ratio, and have no black bars.

Export a still photo from a video on Mac

In Photos on your Mac, export an individual frame of a video as a photo.

support.apple.com

You may want to convert the exported TIFF photo(s) to JPEG or PNG afterwards to shrink the file size down. You can do that with the Preview app.

Convert image file types using Preview on Mac

In Preview on your Mac, convert graphics to JPEG, JPEG 2000, PDF, PNG, PSD, TIFF, and more.

support.apple.com

 

[Misheemee]

Thank you so much for this info @Jorgos and @iStorm - REALLY appreciate it!!!

 

[arw]

On a Mac, you can export the video frame as a photo using the Photos app. It'll keep the original resolution, aspect ratio, and have no black bars.

Great find! It has only been introduced in Monterey (Photos v7) that's why I could never find it on my Big Sur machines.
This looks by far like the easiest way to get (hopefully) correctly exposed/graded stills of an HDR movie.

 

[Misheemee]

Screenshots using the iPhone is the quick and dirty way, but it comes with some caveats:

• The resolution will be different
• The aspect ratio will be different compared to the typical 4:3 or 16:9 ratio (it'll be the ratio of your phone's display, unless you crop the screenshot)
• If the video does not fill the screen, black bars will be baked into the photo/screenshot (unless you zoom in first, or crop them out later)

On a Mac, you can export the video frame as a photo using the Photos app. It'll keep the original resolution, aspect ratio, and have no black bars.

Export a still photo from a video on Mac

In Photos on your Mac, export an individual frame of a video as a photo.

support.apple.com

You may want to convert the exported TIFF photo(s) to JPEG or PNG afterwards to shrink the file size down. You can do that with the Preview app.

Convert image file types using Preview on Mac

In Preview on your Mac, convert graphics to JPEG, JPEG 2000, PDF, PNG, PSD, TIFF, and more.

support.apple.com

I've just tried this iStorm, and it's AMAZING!!! Thank you so much for this!!