Screen Grabs - Best Quality

[GPallan]

i'm pretty unsatisfied with the screen grabs we take from our vids. we use a really good 3CCD camera and have well-lit sets, but yet the screen grabs look pretty blurry and unattractive.

any suggestions? how do you guys take images from your vids? what program do you guys use?

right now we're taking the raw avi and putting it through frameshots pro.

thanks! really appreciate it

allan

[Alex_Manifest_M]

I have been wanting to know the same thing....

[Xstr8guy]

Ah, the ever elusive beautiful screencap!

We are shooting with HiDef cams now, so at least we have much bigger images to work with... and that helps. However, 90% of the captures still look like crap.

I use Frameshots and take a capture every 2000ms. That gives me a massive amount of raw images to choose from. I open the folder in Explorer and throw out the 90% crap. Then I batch them through a bunch of filters to increase the contrast, saturation and sharpen, etc.


However, the best option is to have a still camera around and take breaks and shoot some real quality photos.

[GPallan]

thanks xstr8guy!

i take a capture at 3/second and like you, i'm left with a huge number of images that i have to go through. So from around 2000 images, i end up keeping around 100!!! crazy long process but i don't see a way around it.

now how do you batch your images using filters? what program do you use? are these pre-set filters that give you perfect images every time? or do you have to tinker with the filter settings every time?

also, do find that some of your images are interlaced (those jaggedy lines you get when there's motion)? or are they more blurry instead? I haven't been able to figure it out yet, but i get either one or the other...images that are VERY CRISP expect for the odd interlaced hand etc....or images that are blurry over-all with no interlacing. My editor hasn’t been able to figure out what produces one over the other, but I think it has something to do with the format of the video being processed for screen grabs (ie raw AVI as apposed to WMV for example). Any ideas?

thanks

allan

Ah, the ever elusive beautiful screencap!

We are shooting with HiDef cams now, so at least we have much bigger images to work with... and that helps. However, 90% of the captures still look like crap.

I use Frameshots and take a capture every 2000ms. That gives me a massive amount of raw images to choose from. I open the folder in Explorer and throw out the 90% crap. Then I batch them through a bunch of filters to increase the contrast, saturation and sharpen, etc.


However, the best option is to have a still camera around and take breaks and shoot some real quality photos.

[GPallan]

here is what i mean by interlaced images vs blurry images. Notice how the first image is very crisp but is slightly interlaced in some areas. And the second image has no interlacing but has an overall blurry look

[gaybucks_chip]

Photoshop has a good de-interlace filter. You have to play with the settings, but once you get it right, it's pretty amazing at cleaning up interlace artifacts.

You'll probably have to set the contrast, saturation, color balance, and lighten/darken settings manually for each set of caps unless you are constantly shooting in the same location.

I've seen some pretty good automated tools (including Photoshop's own auto color/contrast) but my experience is you can always do better with manual attention.

Even with standard def, if you're using a decent camera, you should be able to get good looking screencaps. They will never be as good as a still camera, but you can definitely make them serviceable enough for members areas, and we've even occasionally used them for tour pages. If you are shooting hi-def, and have the option to shoot progressive as opposed to interlace, take it, and you'll eliminate your interfacing artifacts.

[GPallan]

Thanks Chip! But does Photoshop have a batch filter feature? One where you can de-interlace and color correct?

Also, what's the best vid format to put through frameshots for best results?

Allan

Photoshop has a good de-interlace filter. You have to play with the settings, but once you get it right, it's pretty amazing at cleaning up interlace artifacts.

You'll probably have to set the contrast, saturation, color balance, and lighten/darken settings manually for each set of caps unless you are constantly shooting in the same location.

I've seen some pretty good automated tools (including Photoshop's own auto color/contrast) but my experience is you can always do better with manual attention.

Even with standard def, if you're using a decent camera, you should be able to get good looking screencaps. They will never be as good as a still camera, but you can definitely make them serviceable enough for members areas, and we've even occasionally used them for tour pages. If you are shooting hi-def, and have the option to shoot progressive as opposed to interlace, take it, and you'll eliminate your interfacing artifacts.

[gaybucks_chip]

Jim probably knows details better than I; I'm no Photoshop guru, but there is an "actions" function within Photoshop that allows you to automate anything you would do manually. It's a little more complicated than setting up batch functions within, say, Eyebatch or Thumbs Plus, but it also gives you much more granular control over every aspect of image alteration. I haven't set up a new action recently, but the process of setting it up is basically turning on the action recorder, then opening the image, add the de-interlace filter, then adding whatever other filtration you want, saving the image, and then turning off the action recorder and saving the action.

I don't think the video format matters in particular; .tif is a non-lossy format, so for some images, it might be better, but we normally capture the images in FrameShots as a .jpg and those process fine in Photoshop.