Mask & Screenshot an Image only

[Julian Williams]

I want an image background cropped so I used Roto Brush tool to remove the background of my image. Now I just have to take a screenshot of it, but how?

I know how to take a screenshot in AE but it still renders the whole image. I just want my screenshot : (

And how do I turn it to a transparent png after masking it?

[David Arbor]

You can go to Composition>Save Frame As>File (see screenshot), pick a location, hit Enter, then a Photoshop Sequence gets added to the Render Queue. You can then change that to a PNG Sequence and make sure you choose Video+Alpha, then also make sure you limit your output to a single frame, then export

But that's ridiculous...

Video CoPilot has a great plug-in called FX Console, which allows you to take multiple screenshots to queue and then export (all as PNGs with alpha channels) or save a single frame as a PNG instantly. VIDEO COPILOT | After Effects Tutorials, Plug-ins and Stock Footage for Post Production Professional...

Download this and check out the video for how to save screenshots, as well as all the other really neat things it does.

[Kyle Hamrick]

FX Console 4 Lyfe

[Dave_LaRonde · Accepted solution]

....and let's not forget the obvious way to do it.  The Save Frame As command, which has been a feature of After Effects for.... oh, better than twenty years now.