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Can't edit pictures copied from Quicktime

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
May 10, 2022
3 replies
896 views

Hi,

I can't seem to edit the stills I took from a video in Quicktime. The option to open the images in Photoshop isn't availble. When I copy the images from Indesign to Photoshop they get a lot worse in terms of quality.

What do I do?

Thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Laubender

"The setting is set to high quality display. So there is no way to acces these files?"

The thing is that there are no files.

Just a bunch of pixels on an InDesign page.

If you want to save the stills to files you could do it this way:

[1] Export the InDesign pages to PDF (Print) with a PDF/X-4 export preset where you disabled any color conversion or image downsampling.

[2] Open the PDF in Acrobat Pro and switch to category Print Production.

[3] Click Edit Object in the side bar

[4] Select the image and use the context menu command "Edit Object…" to open it with PhotoShop

Save from PhotoShop to a file type of your choice.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

BobLevine

Community Expert

Why not open the video in Photoshop and pull the stills that way?

Conrad_C

Community Expert

That’s a great suggestion — open the video using Photoshop, use its Timeline to go to each frame needed, copy the video layer and flatten the copy to keep just that still frame.

But because it sounds like they’re on a Mac there is one thing to watch out for. If it’s an Apple Silicon Mac, the video features in Photoshop are not available by default, so Photoshop has to be started in Intel mode to use video features.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

Although pasting into InDesign is not the recommended workflow, it should still work, and there is no reason the quality should go down. The number of pixels pasted should be the same as those copied.

Two questions:

What is the setting under View > Display Performance?

What are the pixel dimensions of the original video? You can find out in QuickTime Player by choosing Window > Show Movie Inspector, and report what it says for Resolution.

@Stijn5FAE wrote:

The option to open the images in Photoshop isn't availble.

This is normal in your case, specifically because the images were pasted. The option to edit in Photoshop depends on Photoshop being able to open a file at the folder path InDesign linked to, when an image is imported using the Place command (or dragging it in from the desktop). But because you pasted, there is no image file stored in any folder, so InDesign can’t show Photoshop where the file is. That’s why pasting is not considered ideal.

S

Stijn5FAEAuthor

Participating Frequently

The setting is set to high quality display. So there is no way to acces these files? Since they are still shown in Indesign i find that weird.

Thanks for the response!

L

Laubender

Correct answer

Community Expert

"The setting is set to high quality display. So there is no way to acces these files?"

The thing is that there are no files.

Just a bunch of pixels on an InDesign page.

If you want to save the stills to files you could do it this way:

[1] Export the InDesign pages to PDF (Print) with a PDF/X-4 export preset where you disabled any color conversion or image downsampling.

[2] Open the PDF in Acrobat Pro and switch to category Print Production.

[3] Click Edit Object in the side bar

[4] Select the image and use the context menu command "Edit Object…" to open it with PhotoShop

Save from PhotoShop to a file type of your choice.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

L

Laubender

Community Expert

How did you place the still images on InDesign pages?

What file type are the stills from that Quicktime movie?

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

S

Stijn5FAEAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks for the reply!

I copied the stills trough cmd c & cmd v.

it doesnt seem to have a file type. They seem to be roaming in a limbo between a file and a clipboard reference.

Peter Spier

Community Expert

Don't paste directly into InDesign. Paste them into a new file in Photoshop, save that as .psd, and use Place (cmd D) to import the .psd into your InDesign layout.

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