Capturing still photos from video

[patty]

Hi, I'm not a photographer and I'm not even sure where to post this question, but I hope someone will help me. My wedding photos turned out rather badly, but I do have a wedding video with lots of nice images. I would like to pull some still photos from the video and I am being given conflicting information. Some people have told me that I won't be able to get a print larger than 2 x 3 that is worth anything, while other people have told me that's not true, that I can get a much larger print if I'm willing to have some imperfection.

I had my video converted to a DVD and I don't know if that causes the images to lose quality in the copy process or not. And, I don't know how to go about grabbing stills off a DVD. I will probably have to have a professional do this for me, but I'd like to be armed with a little knowledge before I start this process.

I am thinking of doing a digital album so that I can be more creative in photo editing and MAYBE compensate for the poor quality of photos by doing something artistic with them. They are beyond "touch up" and while photoshop or photo editing might help some of them, I think I'm gonna need some video stills to fill in the gaps of all those I will have to discard.

I guess my question is: what IS the quality of stills printed from video (the video was taken in 2001 and I don't know what type of equipment was used). Any advice?

[Ads]