9. Capture Images from a Video File You Should Know  2 Perform an Initial Scan for Media
With the plethora of digital recording equipment available to the consumer today, it's often difficult to choose what to bring to an event such as a graduation or wedding. If you tote along your digital camera, you can of course record the action in a series of stills; depending on your camera, you might also have the option of recording a short video (although not with the highest quality). If you bring along your digital video camera to an event, you can record high-quality video, and when needed, capture a single digital image (although again, not with the same quality as your digital camera can provide).  TIPS  | To improve the quality of your captured image somewhat, you might want to apply one of the sharpening filters, such as the Unsharp Mask filter. See 149 Sharpen an Image. You can start the Editor from the Welcome Window by clicking the Quick Fix Photos or Edit and Enhance Photos button. From the Organizer, you can start the Editor by clicking Edit button and selecting either Go to Standard Edit or Go to Quick Fix. |
Sometimes, even after making the decision of which equipment to take, you might find yourself making the impossible choice between stills and video when an important moment arrives. No need to worry: If you've recorded some digital video using either your digital camera or your digital video camera, you can capture a single frame of that video and save it as a digital image (although not with as high a quality as you might have had if you had captured the image with your high resolution digital camera to begin with). 1. | Choose File, Import, Frame From Video
In the Editor, choose File, Import, Frame From Video from the menu bar. The Frame From Video dialog box appears.
| 2. | Select Video File
Click the Browse button to display the Open dialog box, then change to the folder that contains the video file from which you want to grab a still image, select the video file, and click Open. (Supported video formats include AVI, MPG/MPEG, WMV, ASF, and M1V.) The first frame of the video appears in the preview window of the Frame From Video dialog box.
NOTES  | The frames you've captured are not yet permanently saved; if you're satisfied with the quality of a capture, be sure to click the Save button on the Shortcuts bar to save it. If you don't like the captured image, simply close its window without saving the file. To add an image to the catalog when you save it, enable the Include in the Organizer button. If you're using Quick Fix mode, only the last frame you grab is displayed; however, the other frames are safe and sound in their windows. To change to a different image window, select it from the Window menu. |
| 3. | Display Frame to Grab
Click the Play button. Watch the video until the frame you want to capture is displayed in the preview window and click Pause to stop the playback. You can use the other video control buttons (if they are enabled in the particular video format you're using) to locate and display the correct frame. For example, to jump to the last frame in the video, click the Go to End button. You can also drag the video slider (located just above the video control buttons) left or right to jump to a particular place in the video.
If you don't want to hear the video sound as you're reviewing the video, enable the Mute check box.
| 4. | Grab the Frame
When the frame of video you want to convert into a single image is displayed in the preview window, click the large Grab Frame button. The image is captured and displayed in the Editor window.
| 5. | Click Done
Repeat steps 3 and 4 to advance the video and capture additional frames as desired. When you're through grabbing frames as still images, click the Done button.
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