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Exporting a still image from QT

Greetings all,

I have recently upgraded to a new Mac OS 10.6.7, and the latest version of Photoshop. Before I upgraded, I was able to export from QuickTime 7 "movie to picture" generating a .pct still image from a movie. I could subsequently import the .pct image into Photoshop and convert it to anything I wanted. The new version of Photoshop no longer recognizes this image format. Any suggestions? I tried the jpeg-photo option also.

Thanks,

Dave B

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on Apr 22, 2011 4:26 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Apr 23, 2011 6:22 AM

Any suggestions?

You have many options here. They break down into two basic work flows—those that export a frame from within a media player and those based on a screen capture strategy.


The easiest approach would simply be to open the movie in the free MPEG Streamclip application. This application also accesses most of the same QT editing features as QT 7 Pro but offers additional updated frame export options to JPEG, TIFF, or PNG file formats. (I.e., QT 7 Pro only exports to PCT but allows the user to select different "compression" options for storing the PCT data.)


The second approach would be to capture the QT Player as a PNG screen object or a selected PNG screen area. Many users first scale the QT player on their screen before capture using the built-in "Command-Shift-4" key shortcut. The PNG "Picture" file can then be opened in Preview and re-savedin any one of a dozen different file formats or opened directly in Photoshop.


Your basic problem is that the PCT file format is no longer the system default format and, just as your Snow Leopard Preview app no longer supports the PCT file format, so Photoshop may have dropped its support following Apple's "New Technologies" lead.


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Question marked as Best reply

Apr 23, 2011 6:22 AM in response to dberry1950

Any suggestions?

You have many options here. They break down into two basic work flows—those that export a frame from within a media player and those based on a screen capture strategy.


The easiest approach would simply be to open the movie in the free MPEG Streamclip application. This application also accesses most of the same QT editing features as QT 7 Pro but offers additional updated frame export options to JPEG, TIFF, or PNG file formats. (I.e., QT 7 Pro only exports to PCT but allows the user to select different "compression" options for storing the PCT data.)


The second approach would be to capture the QT Player as a PNG screen object or a selected PNG screen area. Many users first scale the QT player on their screen before capture using the built-in "Command-Shift-4" key shortcut. The PNG "Picture" file can then be opened in Preview and re-savedin any one of a dozen different file formats or opened directly in Photoshop.


Your basic problem is that the PCT file format is no longer the system default format and, just as your Snow Leopard Preview app no longer supports the PCT file format, so Photoshop may have dropped its support following Apple's "New Technologies" lead.


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Oct 21, 2011 6:56 AM in response to QuickTimeKirk

I'm Italian, so sorry for possible mistakes in writing ...,

I have this problem, I own a Iphone4 , I've played some videos, after I have downloaded them on my PC and after I tried to use the function copy (during a pause) to export a single frame from video on others windows application like Paint (for example) and I have unlukely discovered that it doesn't work, the frame cutted was totally blank (white).

The strange thing is that on the same PC with a video played with another IPhone4 the function copy works well letting the single frame was exported succesfully.

I hope you understand what I have written and that you'll be able to suggest and write me a solution to this problem.

Thank you very much,


Sergio

Aug 2, 2015 2:22 PM in response to dberry1950

I was looking for a solution for this exact thing and I stumbled across this page


I know that you all probably already found the solution by now, but in case anyone else visits this page:


Here is how to make a still image (screenshot) from QuickTime:


1. Open your video in QuickTime and pause at the frame that you like to make a screenshot from

2. Click on "Edit" and then on "Copy"

3. Open "Preview", and click on "File > New from Clipboard"

4. Save the picture in any format that you like.


Hope that you'll find the solution useful.


I've found this tip in a older blog, but the same procedure still works with OS X Yosemite


Source:

http://concepcion-design.com/blog/how-to-take-a-screenshot-from-quicktime/

Aug 2, 2015 3:33 PM in response to ChitlinsCC

Thanks for the update and for the extra trick to paste directly in PhotoShop.


I know it's an old topic, but for some reason it still shows under top results when you search for how to extract a screenshot from QuickTime.


What's even more strange is that there are not many solutions out there for this specific issue. So what you posted here is very useful.


Thanks, ChitlinsCC

Aug 2, 2015 4:06 PM in response to getvladimir

bottom up


You're welcome


I was a New Media Developer for many years. Asset prep was a huge part of preparing to author. PShop and ImageReady were workhorses so getting everything ready for them was a priority. Shortest distance between the two points was the Clipboard.


Searching the discussions with the built-in search engine is largely useless to me. When I need to search anything in AppleWebWorld I use Google Site Search of the relevant subdomains

*search is a place holder for any search terms - quotes and * (wildcard) allowed - no brackets!


[ search site:apple.com ] = all of apple and its various subdomains


narrowing

[ search site:support.apple.com ] = Articles, Troubleshooting, Tips authored by Apple

[ search site:help.apple.com ] = Assorted Help files - very much like the in App "Help" menu docs

[ search site:discussions.apple.com ] = ASC threads and all included posts - I have seen results mere minutes old - check this top of the list thread

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and its result:

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You're welcome, again.

ÇÇÇ

Aug 2, 2015 4:33 PM in response to getvladimir

you're welcome, again

BTW, Google site search works well on almost any domain -

You can add any of the following:

  • Individual pages: www.example.com/page.html
  • Entire site: www.mysite.com/*
  • Parts of site: www.example.com/docs/* or www.example.com/docs/
  • Entire domain: *.example.com



Google even has a "widget" that web developers can embed that does this very thing

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buenos noches

ÇÇÇ

Aug 3, 2015 4:32 PM in response to getvladimir

As this procedure helped me many times now, I've made a short video on How to make a screenshot of a video in QuickTime Player:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY1fFaumYK0

As I originally indicated in this discussion, there are many options for capturing a QT movie frames. I personally prefer using the built-in Mac OS X image capture feature for capturing QT X player frames since it does not require the opening of any application as depicted here:

http://downloads.walker4.me/Temporary_files/MovieFrameCapture.mp4


In this case. once the target frame is selecting in the QT X player, simply use the built-in "Shift-Command-4" keyboard shortcut to activate the built-in Mac OS X image capture feature. In my case I then used the "Space Bar" key to enter the "Window" capture mode, and used the "Option-Mouse Click" shortcut to capture/save the targeted frame (without the default drop shadow) as a time stamped "Screen Shot" file. Lastly, I opened the resulting image to compare it with the original frame still opened on my screen in the QT X player.

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Aug 4, 2015 4:54 AM in response to Jon Walker

That is an awesome tip! Every time I used the "Shift-Command-4" on QuickTime, it had the drop shadow.


Taking the screenshot with "Option-Mouse Click" instead of a normal click eliminates that.


Thank you for sharing this, Jon!


I was always hesitant to use the screenshot feature (Shift-Command-4 and space) for taking stills because I was not sure it will copy the image in full resolution (sometimes the videos are greater than my monitor resolution).

Aug 4, 2015 9:06 AM in response to getvladimir

getvladimir wrote:


That is an awesome tip! Every time I used the "Shift-Command-4" on QuickTime, it had the drop shadow.


Taking the screenshot with "Option-Mouse Click" instead of a normal click eliminates that.


Thank you for sharing this, Jon!


I was always hesitant to use the screenshot feature (Shift-Command-4 and space) for taking stills because I was not sure it will copy the image in full resolution (sometimes the videos are greater than my monitor resolution).

The CLIPBOARD is grabbing the data from the file's data - text is text, image data is image data. A screenshot is grabbing its file data from the display buffer - the best the computer can provide to ANY display, no matter its capabilities


The WorkFlow of:

  • playhead on the frame
  • Edit > Copy
  • Switch to PhotoShop or Preview
  • New from Clipboard

... is the best image quality you could hope for - and exactly the same as Export of the still frame.

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Exporting a still image from QT

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