How to export still frame from Quicktime movie?

It's actually saving a Photo JPEG, but with the .pct extension, so try just saving the file with an extension of .jpg rather than .pct and see if Photoshop will then import it (if you have files already exported, try changing the extension on the existing files). If that doesn't work, try saving as JPEG2000, again with .jpg as the file extension.

Hope this helps.

Hey Dave,

If you look at the file in Finder and control click there should be an option that says JPEG to iPhoto. That will open the file in iPhoto and then you can export it as a JPEG from there.

Hope that works!

Hi Kris - just found this after having the same problem but I found a good solution.

Open QT and stop on the frame you want to capture.

Then go to File and Print - select PDF and save to your target destination.

Open the PDF in Photoshop (or Preview) and save as TIFF/JPEG or whatever format you want.

I did this with a HD Quicktime frame and it saved in good resolution when I exported as a Jpeg.

The absolute easiest way to do this is to grab a screen capture: shift-command-4 will give you the crosshairs; just click and drag over the Quicktime movie (which naturally will need to be cued on the frame you want). That's it. You're done. A PNG file is created on your desktop (by default named Picture 1, Picture 2, etc.)

But the underlying issue here is still a concern: why in the world can't Quicktime export to a greater choice of file types? You can specify the compression, sure, but the container is still a .pct and even if you manually change that, it doesn't always work. What gives?

Same problem here - no matter whether I choose Photo - JPEG or PNG format as the "compressor", QT 7 Pro wants to save with a .pct extension, and changing it to .jpg or .png extension fails to open.

The two workarounds I've found are:

1. Save it in Photo - JPEG or PNG format with a .pct extension, open with Photoshop CS4 or below, save to desired format.

One may be able to accomplish the same using Preview instead of Photoshop, but on my Snow Leopard machine I get the error "The PICT file format is not supported in 64-bit mode. Try selecting "Open in 32 Bit Mode" in the Finder's info window for Preview." and I don't feel like bothering to do this.

2. Use Grab to take a screenshot, copy into Preview, crop as necessary and save to desired format.

Which is easier depends on whether you feel like having to do precision cropping or not. Totally agree with above commenters - whither PICT, Apple?

Message was edited by: Daniel Toman