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I took photos and video of a place that I liked, to use it in my website. I now see that the video scenes look better than the photos. May be due to resolution, I am not expert. My question is, how can I take a scene from my video by keeping its resolution at the same time? I am not talking about taking simply screenshot because in that case the resolution is lost.

And if I do this, and take and use a scene from the video I made as a photo, this is exactly the same as owning copyright of a photo I made right?

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    \$\begingroup\$ Videos are almost without exception captured at a significantly lower resolution than still images. For whatever reason your video looks better, it is very unlikely because of better resolution. You must also be aware, that if you extract single frames from a video recording, you are much more likely to see artifacts in the extracted frame, which are not noticable when playing the video. But, give it a try, perhaps you achieve what you are expecting. \$\endgroup\$
    – jarnbjo
    Commented Apr 25 at 7:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ I took my video with the highest resolution possible in my camera and highest frame per second \$\endgroup\$
    – upstream
    Commented Apr 25 at 8:51
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    \$\begingroup\$ In principle, recording a video is really nothing much different to recording a bunch of photos - recorded in very quick succession, and originally intended to be displayed in very quick succession - but that isn't obligatory. \$\endgroup\$
    – osullic
    Commented Apr 25 at 9:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ @osullic in practice, if you recorded the photos in the same quality as you record the regular photos, you would have enough storage for maybe 30s of video. \$\endgroup\$
    – OrangeDog
    Commented Apr 25 at 16:46
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    \$\begingroup\$ @osullic we can both be right in different contexts. For fast motion, you're more likely to be right - get the perfect moment and avoiding motion blur within a frame. The question's "of a place I liked" didn't suggest that to me, instead suggesting a situation where a lower framerate would give the option for longer exposure times and lower gain to reduce image noise. "Place" is vague enough that light levels could be low, and noise in the dark regions of a grabbed frame is quite striking on a photo. \$\endgroup\$
    – Chris H
    Commented Apr 26 at 10:42

2 Answers 2

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You can use for example ffmpeg program to extract the image. The command will be something like:

ffmpeg -ss 00:01:04 -i input.mp4 -frames:v 1 screenshot.png

where 00:01:04 is the moment when you want to extract the image, -frames:v 1 define to extract one frame. The rest is self-explained.

And yes, the image extracted will inherit the copyright, so if you take the video you own the copyright of image

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    \$\begingroup\$ While I love FFmpeg, I wouldn't use it for this task. Personally I'd probably use Avidemux - I think it's easier to use an application with a graphical user interface so you can step through the video frame by frame - especially because there are simply so many frames to choose from. \$\endgroup\$
    – osullic
    Commented Apr 25 at 9:09
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    \$\begingroup\$ @osullic, good point, but as I do not use Avidemux, will prefer VLC :) \$\endgroup\$
    – Romeo Ninov
    Commented Apr 25 at 10:22
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    \$\begingroup\$ I forget if FFmpeg will default to seeking to an I-frame (keyframe) near the selected -ss. I think so, unless you use an accurate-seek option to make it decode from the last keyframe to the frame with the exact timestamp you specify. In this case you probably want an I-frame because they're higher quality. Unless the scene is moving and the image you want is only present as a P or B frame. Avidemux will show you frame types and has options to seek to the next or previous keyframe, so I'd second @osullic's recommendation. mpv.io can also do that; hit s for screenshot. \$\endgroup\$
    – Peter Cordes
    Commented Apr 25 at 20:07
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VLC can snap single frames using a key command [default Cmd/Opt/S on Mac, idk on Win].

It's obviously easier to get the correct frame in pause. You can advance one frame at a time using the ] key.

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    \$\begingroup\$ QtHotkeys - VideoLAN Wiki \$\endgroup\$
    – osullic
    Commented Apr 25 at 13:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ @osullic - thanks. A lot of those are very different from the Mac defaults. \$\endgroup\$
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Apr 25 at 14:35
  • \$\begingroup\$ Unfortunately, VLC doesn't support frame-stepping backwards, so it can be a bit painful if you find you've stepped a little too far. I ended up switching to mpv for a similar purpose; by default it assigns , and . to frame-stepping backwards and forwards respectively. \$\endgroup\$
    – Bob
    Commented Apr 27 at 11:58
  • \$\begingroup\$ I have jump back set to just one second on the Mac I use this feature on most frequently., but you\re right a one frame back would be more useful. \$\endgroup\$
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Apr 27 at 14:09

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