Can I transform my live photos into normal still ones?

You can convert them. It's kind of a multi-step process.

First, assuming you're doing this on your phone, view the photo in the photo app and click the 'Edit' button.

From here there are a couple of tools at the bottom of the screen. Click the Live button:

Now you'll see a thumbnail of the frames in the Live Photo. You can scrub across this line to get to your preferred frame.

Once you have it, turn off the Live option at the top of the screen:

This will convert the Live Photo to a static photo (and the other frames will be lost)

They already actually are. When you take a "live" photo, it's takes 1.5 seconds of video, followed by a static .jpg image as the last frame. If you plug your iPhone or iPad into your Mac and connect to it with Image Capture, you'll see two of every shot you took. A small video followed by a .jpg with the same name. Copy the JPEGs to your computer.

Sorry, Nina. Had that backwards as I normally never have Live Picture on. The very first thing saved is the still .jpg, followed by 1.5 seconds of video.

When you connect to Image Capture, you only see the .jpg images in your list. Drag and drop them to the desktop and it then turns into what a live shot is. Both a .jpg and .mov file.

Yes, on my iPhone 6s running iOS 13.3.1. I don't see anything in Settings that would let you to choose when the still image is captured.

You wouldn't think which model phone should make a difference, but possibly?

As far as use, I just tap the live icon at the top center of the screen to turn it on or off. No press and hold or anything else special.

Nina Contini Melis wrote:

Yes, that's the problem. As someone who shoot still pics and not video, as a rule, when I press the shutter THAT is the image I want to keep, not what happens 1.5 seconds later, when eyes have wandered, gestures changed, etc.

But that is exactly what will happen, even if you take a Live Photo.

The high resolution still frame is taken when you take the shot, and the video component extends from 1.5 seconds before to after you pressed the shutter button. You just need to discard the video and use the high resolution still frame. That is what I am doing, when I forgot to turn off the Live feature. I am only using Live Photos for Waterfalls or Fountains, where the animation is quite nice.

That's odd. I had just tested it again here, and it was the still image first, followed by the video.

When I email a Live Photo from my iPhone it will send the just the high resolution still frame as aJPEG.