Exporting a freeze frame as a still image

Question

Hi I need to extract a still frame from some footage, how do i do this so i can export it so i can use on a website ?
Hillster

Answer 1

Here's a really cool way if you have Photoshop, especially if you ever need to export multiple still frames:
Generally after a cut is complete we export a Quicktime movie of it in our favorite format [generally ProRes or XDCAM EX]. Open that file in a Quicktime player.
Open Photoshop create a new document, in our case 1920x1080P.
Place the Quicktime player just above the Photoshop document, scroll to the still you want, hold down shift [this centers the image in the center of the frame] and drag and drop into the Photoshop document.
Do this as many times as you want, each time you drop an image it creates a new layer in the Photoshop document.
Once you have the stills you want, close Quicktime, in Photoshop go to File/Scripts/Export Layers to Files and it will export, name and place the files where you tell it in TIFF, JPEG or whatever format you choose.
We do a lot of corporate stuff and since exporting a still from FCP was much more time consuming than it should be we rarely provided stills. Once we were told about this method we provide 15 to 20 stills from every project for use in brochures and other promotional materials.
The cool things is that they're not aware how quick and efficient it is to do this, and we $till charge for every $till!