Converting MP4 to JPG

[Condor1950]

Hi,

We have recently returned from a holiday and I have noticed that all my pictures are in the MP4 format.

It was a new camera and I must have pushed a wrong button so now I want to convert those MP4's to JPG. My question is can I do this in Adobe Photo Elements?

I am using Adobe Photoshop Elements 15.

Many thanks in advance.

Regards

Paul O'Halloran

[99jon]

Hi Paul

Did you shoot a video by mistake? MP4 is normally a video clip. Can you double-click on it from Organizer to play a preview?

[Test Screen Name]

MP4 isn't an alternative to JPEG, with a single picture in. What you've actually done is made a whole lot of movies! Done that myself...

[99jon]

All the video tools are now found in Premiere Elements and Adobe now sells Photoshop Elements & Premiere Elements as a bundle. It used to be possible in older versions of PSE to use the menu:

File >> Import >> Frame from Video

That’s no longer possible and I don’t think that feature is available in PSE15.

The best you can do is to import the files into Organizer and play the preview from Organizer by double-clicking on the video thumbnail. Pause at the frame you want. Then make a screenshot. Open the screenshot in the PSE Editor, crop and save as jpeg. Screenshots are not perfect and the resolution will depend upon your monitor. I have a large Dell ultra-sharp monitor and get reasonable screenshots of 2560 x 1440 pixels.

[Condor1950]

Thanks for the replies. The setting that I was using was "Post Focus" so it's no wonder they turned out as they did.

I'll get up Organizer and go from there.

[Greg_S.]

What make and model is your camera?  Are you sure that it does not create a jpg thumbnail file of your video? My Sony does, but that may be according to my settings.

In any event, you can use VLC which is a free (and well-regarded) video player utility to play the video and create an image of a frame.  You can download VLC from here.  Instructions for saving a screen grab of the video may be found here.  (Be careful of where you click to download.  The webpage is full of ads for software.)

[Condor1950]

Hi Greg,

It's actually my wife's camera which is a Panasonic TZ110. We only just bought it before going on holidays. I guess I should have read the manual (not something I do btw). I have VLC which is a pretty good program so I will give it a crack. Thanks for that info.

I mainly shoot video in 4K on my Sony AX53 and I don't have any problems.

Cheers

[99jon]

Panasonic says you can select the best focused frame and save a jpeg in camera.