More on Capturing Stills

Why is this so difficult?

I have tried two different ways of capturing stills:

open a clip in quicktime, not FCP, and drag and drop directly into a Photoshop document. Works great, however can't capture directly from FCP timeline, where the producer has marked the stills he/she want captured. And requires Photoshop.

The other way is to park the play head on the image I want to capture, shift N and then drag the image from the viewer to a bin. That's fine but when I try to Batch Export I get a Filename Error

"The output for these items is not valid. It may be too long or contain invalid characters.

To continue the export, enter a new base output filename below and select OK."

After entering a new name for that file I get the same message for the next. Having to rename each file in the bin kind of defeats the purpose of Batch exporting.

This should be such an easy thing to do. Any suggestions?

Select the markers in the Browser and press APPLE-U (Make Subclip), then Batch Export. The SHIFT-N (Modify - Make Freeze Frame) step is redundant and adds to your work because that command doesn't work on multiple markers at once; Make Subclip does.

> The output for these items is not valid. It may be too long or contain invalid characters.

Did you or your producer enter a long bunch of notes into the marker name? Or use illegal characters?

I don't know of a way to quickly batch-rename markers. Next time you create markers, enter the details into the "Comment" section and leave the name of the marker more streamlined.

Here's another workaround, since you already made the FCP Freeze Frames in a bin:

1. Drag all of them from a bin onto a timeline with matching settings. You should get all the stills in a row with no gaps in between.
2. Select them all, the CONTROL-click and choose Duration. Make them one frame long.
3. Export - Using QuickTime Conversion - Image Sequence. Choose the image format you want. That export process also allows you to give a brand-new, unrelated file prefix.


www.derekmok.com

Shift N makes a freeze frame.
The name of the freeze contains the TIMECODE written with colons.
this is what's illegal.

the trick is to rename the freeze when you make it.

otherwise add markers in the viewer, etc, etc.


no batch re-naming in FCP, i'm afraid.
you could program a Quickeys macro to remove the last 12 digits from every freeze.


nick

I'm confused on what you want to do.
If you want "Export" a still from your timeline.
Just park on the frame. I mark the frame.
Then go to
File/Export
Quicktime conversion
then select still image from format options.
And then select what kind of still ... i.e. PNG PSD JPEG etc.
And where you want to save it.
It takes seconds.

hope that helps

JC

> I'm confused on what you want to do.
> If you want "Export" a still from your timeline.
> Just park on the frame. I mark the frame.

He has multiple stills he's trying to export in one go. Your method only does one by one. Good for a short-format show, but hell if you have a 120-minute feature where the producer marked down 300 frames for export.


www.derekmok.com

Hey, JC.

the issue is Bulk!

it doesn't seem like a lot of work for one or two exports,
but when you have a whole bunch, it gets a bit painful,
so it makes sense to batch export them.

it;s actually a pretty long winded way to export a still.
it should be a one button affair.

it could be if:
next time you go to Export with QuickTime Conversion,
it remembers your last format choice,
and is still set to "Still Image"


also, if you do a one-off export of a freeze frame with the TC in the name, FCP renames it for you.
Batch Export should be able to do the same thing.


nick

> Batch Export should be able to do the same thing.

Should, but doesn't! I don't get it -- it doesn't seem like such a complicated affair to build some of those R-Name options into Batch Export. Or OS, for that matter. R-Name is so much more intuitive and ever since I downloaded it (I remember that according to Nick, it's no longer available), I haven't had a renaming need it's failed to meet, yet.


www.derekmok.com

FCP has more inconsistencies than the English language!

yeah, it'd be great if there were built in "find and replace" naming functions in FCP.


nm

[you could program a Quickeys macro to remove the last 12 digits from every freeze. ]

You could program QuicKeys to Export any frame, at will, in seconds.
You can program it to dig down and set the Options, pause while you rename the clip, press Return to continue automated export.

You can assign the sequence to an easy hotkey.

Rather than have to go collect them and then export.

- Loren
Today's FCP keytip:
Toggle Audio Scrub with Shift-S !

Final Cut Studio 2 KeyGuide? Power Pack.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

Thanks for the replies.

Placing a source clip in the viewer, adding markers to create subclips and then batch exporting the subclips works great. However, is it possible to do the same thing from the timeline?

Loren, I don't know what QuicKeys are, I'll check the manual but if you have some easy examples or suggestions on how to accomplish this I'd appreciate it.

Thanks again everyone.

it'll work IF you've got solid Master / Affiliate links between your Timeline clips and your Browser clips.
it'd probably also be a lot easier if your project was really simply organised.

so i'd suggest doing this:

COPY your sequence/s into a new project.
Tools Menu > Create Master Clips.

now you've got solid M/A links and a simple project: sequence/s and a bin full of clips.

working from the timeline, match-frame a shot into the viewer and add markers.
the BROWSER version of the clip also get markers due to the M/A relationship.
also, if you matchframe another instance of the same clip from timeline to viewer, the previous markers will still be there, and new ones will be added.

later you just have to go to the browser, and all your markers will be on the clips.

to make life easier:
when you're adding markers in the viewer, COLOUR the clip (option apple 2-6 add the 5 colour labels)
later, sort the browser by the LABELS column, to group all clips with markers.

you sill have to manualy toggle each clip open to reveal the markers.


nick