Capturing stills from video?

[patty]

Hi, I'm not a photographer, and I desperately need some advice. My wedding photos turned out rather badly, but I do have a wedding video. 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?

 

[dkf10425]

You can grab some stills, but the quality is going to depend on the quality of the video. Don't have high expectations. The best way is to use a video editor where you can grab key frames and save as png or jpeg. The print size is going to depend on what quality setting and the size of the preview screen when you take the snap shot. A small preview screen during video editing means small image size. Same with preview quality setting. Always have your preview quality setting on the best possible when taking a snap shot. Then it can be run through the photoshop video filter. And when you say some of your wedding photos are "beyond touch up", have you had them evaluated by a professional? If you can, post one of the bad quality ones, I would like to take a look.