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Confusal
Known Participant
September 26, 2020
Answered

trying to save the frame I'm looking at in video

  • September 26, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 831 views

I'm sure I'll feel dumb when I find out, but Google isn't helping me. I want to take a single frame from a video and make it a regular photo. I play the video in Photoshop, get to the frame I want, then I can't come up with anything smarter than taking a system screenshot and cropping it back down to the frame, but that's crazy. 

I found the render option, so if I can guess the right range, I can make a bunch of frames, then browse through those, but I'm bad at guessing, and I'm staring at the frame I want. I must be able to tell photoshop to make what I'm looking at into it's own layer or png. 

 

Can anybody help? Again, I don't want to render hundreds or thousands of frames then search those, I want to watch my video and save the screen I'm looking at whenever I want. 

Thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Conrad_C

The way I do it is:

  1. Find the frame you want, like you already do
  2. Duplicate that Video Group (not just the video layer), so that there’s now a duplicate video group that still shows the same frame in time
  3. Select the duplicate video layer inside the duplicate video group, and choose Layer > Rasterize > Layer.

 

Rasterizing a video layer converts it into a normal still-image pixel layer, using the frame you were looking at.

 

Duplicating the original video group means you still have the video if you want to rasterize more stills out of it. If you only need one frame, you don’t need to duplicate the original, just convert the original.

2 replies

Conrad_C
Community Expert
Conrad_CCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
September 26, 2020

The way I do it is:

  1. Find the frame you want, like you already do
  2. Duplicate that Video Group (not just the video layer), so that there’s now a duplicate video group that still shows the same frame in time
  3. Select the duplicate video layer inside the duplicate video group, and choose Layer > Rasterize > Layer.

 

Rasterizing a video layer converts it into a normal still-image pixel layer, using the frame you were looking at.

 

Duplicating the original video group means you still have the video if you want to rasterize more stills out of it. If you only need one frame, you don’t need to duplicate the original, just convert the original.

    C
    ConfusalAuthor
    Known Participant
    October 2, 2020

    Thank you! I just tried it, and it did what I was after. Now I suppose the trick for me would be to create a quick key somehow that does exactly that. I do usually save a dozen or more stills from a video, and would like to save it and keep watching. 

    I found an instruction page from Adobe claiming to do exactly the same thing, but step one is "choose composition, then select..." but I don't see a composition tab or menu so I think it's been gotten rid of. 

     

    barbara_a7746676
    Community Expert
    barbara_a7746676Community Expert
    Community Expert
    September 26, 2020

    Would File  > Import > Video Frames to Layers work for you?

    C
    ConfusalAuthor
    Known Participant
    October 2, 2020

    Thank you for the reply! I looked at that, and it seems to be what I've done before, which results in thousands of frames from the video and hogs up my hard drive until I delete them.

    It wants to select a whole video, but I'm watching the video and I see just a frame I want to keep. I usually take a dozen or so screen shots during a video, then look at them and pick a few I want to use for something or manipulate. 

    Am I misunderstanding how to use it?

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