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High Resolution Screen grabs from 5D’s HD Video
Hi guys,
I’m trying to capture screen grabs from a .mov file shot with the Canon 5D Mark II for use in a magazine.
Obviously it’s HD so the resolution is great, but I was wondering if there’s anyway to make absolutely full size, hi-res screen shots, rather than just taking grabs from the movie playing on the screen?Any help would be hugely appreciated!
Thanks,
Alex
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8 Replies
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[Alex Gregory] “Obviously it’s HD so the resolution is great,”
Don’t believe the hype… in print terms yu have about 1.5 megapixels there (depending on flavor of HD captured)
You can use Image Size command in Photoshop to scale exactly 200%, but I wouldn’t go beyond that.
Richard M. Harrington, PMP
Author: Video Made on a Mac, Photoshop for Video, Understanding Adobe Photoshop, Final Cut Studio On the Spot and ATS:iWork
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Yes, great for video does not mean great for print. For print spec of 300 dpi you would need to limit the size of the image to 6×4. While you can get go results in PS going up 200% unless it is a prefectly focused image it would not get excepted in many magazines.
This is one of the areas that RED is king. If you are shooting in 4K you have the info for mag quality prints.
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Oops.
Sounds to me like someone was so busy shooting VIDEO with their 5dMkii that they FORGOT that they were shooting video with a world class STILL camera.
If they’d simply taken a few seconds at the end of each video “take” for stills (just like they do on REAL movie sets all the time using a dedicated publicity stills photographer) tthey would ALSO have gotten 12.5 megapixel stills that would easily work for anything this side of billboards and/or building wraps.
Got to plan and think ahead, folks.
No excuse to miss having EXCELLENT stills from every video shoot from now on – but you have to plan for it, and take the very modest time it takes in the field.
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I was thinking that… but bit my tongue. =)
Richard M. Harrington, PMP
Author: Video Made on a Mac, Photoshop for Video, Understanding Adobe Photoshop, Final Cut Studio On the Spot and ATS:iWork
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hmm..
Well Bill, you’re wrong on all counts actually. I was commissioned to shoot video of a band playing live for a dvd release and a journalist in the crowd spotted me on stage, found me afterwards and asked if I could provide any screen grabs for a magazine piece on the show.
It wasn’t a case of taking a few seconds to take stills, it simply wasn’t applicable at the time.No worries though, your post wasn’t completely redundant as you did go to great lengths to answer my question, so thanks for that at least, otherwise you’d have just come across as extremely patronizing and unhelpful…
Anyway, for future reference, you’re confusing the 5D (which is 12.9 megapixels and doesn’t shoot video) with the 5D mark II (which is 21.1 megapixels and does). Again, no worries though, as it’s an easy mistake to make… similar sounding name and all that.
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You could us a photoshop plugin called Blow Up 2 along with whatever screen grab you found. I’ve used it before, and it really can do a good job of resizing any photos beyond 200% with decent quality. Although not as good as getting an actual photo in the first place, it’s still a good “Plan B”.
Good Luck!
Ryan -
Well, you can’t print full page, but a 1920×1080 image should print ok at a smaller size – a magazine may complain about DPI, but plenty of video stills have been printed over the years – content first.
Mike Cohen
Medical Education / Multimedia Producer
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I totally second that. Magazines just have to get a little creative – e.g. printing several successive frames as a rol of film instead of bitching about the images not being more DPI than 72… duhhh – it was never shot for print purposes.
One word of caution though – make sure that QT is the best image capture program for this purpose as it sometimes tends to wash down the image quality…
To spice things up a bit, you can do some nice CC work with PhotoLooks from Red Giant Software.
Richard van den Boogaard
cameraman / editor / video marketing consultantBranded Channels
W: http://www.brandedchannels.com
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