Eventually, you will look at captured video and
decide it would be nice to grab a still image from the video
footage. Sometimes you get a great shot with your camcorder and
wish you would have used a camera. These great shots
can
be exported as still images with Premiere
Elements in a few simple steps. The stills you capture from your
video footage can be added to your project automatically and also
saved to your hard drive.
The still is saved as an interlaced 720480 pixel
image in the format you select in step 4. The quality of video
stills is a bit low for printingalthough a 4
"
6
"
photo print might be satisfactory. The resolution of the extracted
still image also depends on the source of the clip (analog video
from a VHS tape or video from a DV camcorder). If you want to print
your still image, you might have to
de-
interlace
it in Premiere
Elements (as explained in
49 Control
Interlacing and Field Options
) or with photo-editing
software such as Photoshop Elements. If you use the image in your
project and burn it to a DVD, the interlaced image will look just
fine when
viewed
on a TV screen. For computer viewing, just as with
printing, the still image must be de-interlaced to get a clearer
image.
|
1.
|
Place a Clip in
the Monitor View
Select the clip from which you want to grab the still image. You
can select a clip from the
Media
panel or one from the
Timeline
. Select the clip and click
the
Clip View
button at the top
of the
Monitor
, or simply
double-click the clip. The clip appears in the
Monitor
view. Scrub through the clip to
locate that one frame that is a keeper by using the VCR and shuttle
controls. When the image you want to grab appears in the
Monitor
view, continue with step
2.
|
|
2.
|
Click the Export
Frame Button
The image you see in the
Monitor
view is the image that will become your still. To grab this still,
click the
Export Frame
button
(the camera icon). The
Export
Frame
dialog box appears.
21. Grab a Still from
Video
TIP
Your video is a mass of frames; 30 frames per
second to be exact. With 30
frames
per second to choose from, there
must be one that is "just right." Use the
Step Forward
and
Step Back
buttons
in the VCR controls to
move the clip one frame at a time until you find just the right
one.
|
|
3.
|
Name
Your
Still
Decide on a name for your clip and type it in the
File name
text box. You can also select the
directory where you would like the image to be placed from the
Save in
drop-down list at the
top of the dialog box.
|
|
4.
|
Change the Image
Settings
Click the
Settings
button to
open
the
Export Frame Settings
dialog box. From the
File Type
drop-down list, select the format in which you want to save the
still image:
Windows Bitmap, GIF, JPEG,
Targa
, or
TIFF
. Depending
on your selection, other options become available.
TIP
If you save your image as a GIF, you will have
the option of a transparent background. However, many videographers
choose the TIFF format because it has less compression and holds
its quality better after editing and copying.
|
|
5.
|
Save Your
Still
After you have made any desired changes in the
Export Frame Settings
dialog box, click the
OK
button and click the
Save
button in the
Export Frame
dialog box. Now your still
image is preserved on your hard drive for this project (and
possibly for future projects) as well as being added to the
Media
panel for this
project.
|
Still images grabbed from video clips and used
in your project make great backgrounds for titles and DVD
menus
.
BEFORE YOU BEGIN
SEE ALSO