Getting decent still images from FCP?

[Greg Quinn]

I was the lone cameraman on a reality documentary project, and so wasn't in a great position to also do stills work at the same time. The project was shot in HDV (Sony V1U) and so the footage has the horizontal resolution issues associated with HDV. I'm wondering whether anyone here has any tips for getting good stills from this kind of footage, apart from just using the export functionality from FCP. I'm pretty sure I've seen some dedicated software for exporting stills, but can't remember from where.

Thanks
Greg

[Lance Librandi]

Hi Greg,
In FCP select the frame fro thr timeline goto export as and select quicktime, still frame then select the format Jpeg, Tiff etc and bingo you have a still frame. I would then import the still into Photoshop and apply whatever treatment you want or deinterlace it if required.

[Gabe Strong]

Originally Posted by Lance Librandi

Hi Greg,
In FCP select the frame fro thr timeline goto export as and select quicktime, still frame then select the format Jpeg, Tiff etc and bingo you have a still frame. I would then import the still into Photoshop and apply whatever treatment you want or deinterlace it if required.

I would add, if you need to 'uprez' the still the best solution I have come across is
Genuine Fractals. I've uprezzed SD footage for printing pictures on the face of a DVD
with really good results.

[Greg Quinn]

Lance and Gabe, thanks very much for the replies. I guess I was looking to circumvent 'shopping the images, but that's unrealistic. I've never hear of Genuine Fractals - very interesting looking program....