how do I export a still frame

Anyone who finds this in 2017, I had this same issue. While iMovie will export a frame as a .jpeg. I found that the Photos app will export it as a .tiff with substantially higher resolution. Go to the frame you want, click the settings button (gear) on the right for a drop down box, Export Frame to pictures. It took a little searching, but it puts it in the folder next to your Photos Library, typically found /users/"username"/Pictures. Have fun!

iPhoneNThatsAll,

Thanks for the info re Photos exporting as a TIFF frame at a higher resolution than iMovie's "Share as Image" function.

I haven't been using the "Share as Image" function, but rather have taken a screen shot of the playback screen, which renders a PNG image of substantially higher resolution than the "Share as Image" but not as high as the the Photos TIFF. To be honest, I haven't noticed much visual difference between the three options, at least on preview playback. The colors in the PNG image and the Share as Image were a little brighter than the TIFF image, although the TIFF image colors seemed to be more true to the original frame.

-- Rich

I believe you can Share~~>change format to jpeg.(settings) Try that. The qaulity might suffer though.

You're probably using iMovie '11, which—for some crazy reason—eliminated that feature. I'm a new user, and exporting a still picture was the first thing I tried to do... so I wasn't pleased to learn that what used to be a simple procedure in iMovie can no longer be done. There's a discussion about alternatives here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3107059?answerId=15371290022#15371290022 I wasn't thrilled with the results I got with that MPEG Streamclip software they recommended; but see what you think. What I've been doing instead is taking a screen shot of the frame in the viewer window—not sophisticated, but it's really easy if you don't need a hi-res picture, and you can save the resulting PNG file as a JPEG or whatever.

If someone else knows of a *really good* workaround for this missing feature in iMovie '11, I hope they'll chime in!

No, you got the 2 most widely recommended workarounds. Either you take screenshots (and do it from the Full Screen Playback window) or you go into MPEG Streamclip and save as jpeg out of that program instead.

Yep, I was afraid of that... But thanks for the full-screen playback tip for screen shots—that's the way I'll do it from now on!

how did that feature work in iMovie '09? i still have it and hought of upgrading, am interested, too.

Nader,

You can export them to jpeg sequence.

Simply put the clip you want turned to jpeg into a blank project. I suggest shortening it as it will export each frame.

Once ready, SHARE -> export to quicktime. Choose Movie to image sequence. Then you can adjust your filetype and compression settings.

Play around with it a little. You'll understand the most optimal way to perform this after one pass.

I simply r-clicked on the video and add still to project. Then shorten your clip and remove the Ken Burns effect. Afterward you can export.

NOTE: the longer the clip, the more jpeg files you will have as each frame becomes an image. In the I had 91 images, because I had a 4sec clip.

Hope this helps.

Calbe

I can't verify this because I started with iMovie '11... But the instructions I have in my manual (which the authors apparently didn't realize would no longer work in the new version) say to:

• Find the frame in the Storyboard and Control+click on it to bring up the context menu
• Choose "Add Freeze Frame," which creates a still picture from the frame and adds it to the Storyboard, splitting the clip with the still picture
• Control+click on the still picture and choose "Reveal in Finder," which opens a window showing the contents of the Stills folder within the project (It's the "Reveal in Finder" command that's missing in iMovie '11.)
• Copy the picture from the Stills folder to use it outside of iMovie

I hope this helps!

thank you where4art, i think also the storyboard is missing in iMovie '09, so it seems like there's no sophisticated way of doing it. Though, calbe helped me with his way of managing the problem.

Are you *sure* there's no Storyboard in your version? Since that's the place where you assemble movies, I'm having a hard time imagining you don't have that! Maybe this is just a terminology problem...

Try going to the area where you work on movies, drag a clip to it and then drag your curser through a clip until the frame you want to save appears in the viewer, then Control+click that spot in the clip to bring up a menu; you should see *Add Freeze Frame" in that list. If you can do that, you're in the Storyboard; and the rest of the instructions should work.

Of course, calbe's method works... but generating a bizillion frames with Quicktime is a pretty inefficient way to get one picture, in my opinion! I *know* you can use "Reveal in Finder" in iMovie '09 because I saw a detailed discussion about it here somewhere—I just can't find it now. People were complaining about it being missing in the new version, and at least one person said they'd talked to someone at Apple who confirmed that iMovie '11 requires workarounds. So, since you have the prior version, *you* should have the power to capture stills efficiently :-)

Yes I'm *sure* there's no storboard in my version. Though I think it's a matter of how they are calling it. In my opinion, apple likes to give features, which are already there, a new name and enhances them a bit (graphically for one part) in every new version (think of "conversation view" in Mac os x lion mail.app). But that aside.

I have to look again if I find something like the "show in finder". But what I meant, was that I don't have the storyboard in the appearance you guys (with your iMovie '11) havewith all those extras like sorting clips in medium shot, wide shot, etc. In my iMovie, it's just a block of clips and not one of the three categories (outline, storyboard, shot list).

That's my imovie (what I think you mean with "storyboard" is my upper left corner)

That is your storyboard:

What I found in my iMovie was the "add freeze frame"-method in my "bunch-of-clips"-section (storyboard).

What I found quite possible is to adjust the slider so i can see every second after makeing a freeze frame. Next, I can select less than a half second and when exporting that part as jpgs (with calbe's method), I don't have so many pictures. As I mentioned before, it's not so sophisticated. (Not without thinking, apple seems to have made this particular part better in iMovie '11.)

Yes, the Storyboard is an add-on of sorts and is part of the Animatics section of iMovie '11 where it gives you a roughed out 'storyboard' with placeholders where you can drop clips as you aquire them. And using the zoom slider to select one 1/30 sec. frame out of clip works too.

Nice workaround actually.

Brilliant solution! Many thanks, great to know this until Apple takes this useful ability away...something they like to do!

What an easy way to do this!! I've been struggling with iMovie (I got a still frame using it once) but this answer is just a simple easy thing to do. I'll be using a lot!!