which is better: a digital photo of a movie still off a computer or TV screen? (1 Viewer)

[DustinLC]

No doubt I'll get flame with such an idiotic idea. Why wouldn't he just get a software to capture a screenshot off the DVD?

I have a mac and I did some reading. I got a heachache just reading on how to do it, what software to use, ect. Then I thought, I don't need a perfect image.

Here's what I'm using it for. I'm an artist. Recently I'm doing a lot of movie paintings. Currently, it's Disney animation in oil painting. I've wasted too much time flipping through available magazines, coloring books, searching through the web just to find the image I want to paint. Wouldn't it be great if I can just find that perfect scene from the movie and paint it? It takes too long to do a piece so freezing a frame on my TV is not a good idea.

I took a digital photo of a freeze frame from my 42 inch RPTV, messed around with it in photoshop, and got a descent image I ALMOST can work with. I wonder if I can improve the image by taking a picture off of my 17in flat panel mac monitor.

Any suggestions? Ideas of how to quicky get an image by other means.

OK, flame suit on. Fire away .

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Dustin,

I dunno which would be better- but I would imagine that someone here would happily capture and email you and image if you need it.

To be honest- I was thinking about hiring an artist to do some painting (very abstract) renditions of a few film frames myself-- I don't have a ton of money, but maybe you might be interested?

I'd be happy to provide you frame captures if you want to be my personal painter

-V

PS: Looks like Steve and Tony are having a ball posting random image captures over in Area 51-- either of them might also be happy to snap a few frames for you.

 

[DustinLC]

Vince,

I'm afraid I don't understand abstract . And you said VERY ABSTRACT.

If it's abstract, why would you need still frames ?
I could have my two year old do it for you. If I could help, I would depending on my ability and time available.

Well, right now there are quite a few scenes from Snow White, Cinderella, Beauty and Beast that I would really like to get my hand on but with all the copyrights about high quality screenshots I've encountered with Disney materials, I just just find any. There are a few but I sure wish some would have done lots of screenshots like people are doing with Lord of the Rings .

 

[ChristopherDAC]

If you pick up the latest nightly build of VLC, it plays back DVDs and in the "video" menu is a "snapshot" tool which automatically does framegrabs. Of course, thanks to the CCIR, they're 480*720 and will have to be resized to 640 or 853 pixels horizontally as appropriate, but you can do that I think. You need to install the version 0.8.1 [which I do not think has this feature] for your operating system, and then go to videolan.org/~videolan and it will direct you to the nightly builds; go to the bottom of the list for your operating system, download the file, and unzip it to the location where you installed version 0.8.1, overwriting the files. It's very handy.

 

[DustinLC]

OK an idea and a question:

Now I'm fairly informed with i-movie on my mac because I've done quite a bit of home video editing. Now, I assume that if I plug in my DVD player to my mac and import the movie, it won't work because of copyrights. I'm not sure if it just won't allow me to import or it'll have all kinds of flashes, ect. However, what if I just pause a scene and import a freezed frame into i-movie and make an image still that way? Since it'll be s-video connection out and converted to firewire before entering the computer, I assume that image might be crappy. But it might be good enough. Can anyone comment on this?

Christopher, your link didn't work. Also, I need to read your post a few more times before my challenged mind gets it .

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Lol- I was thinking along the lines of impressionistic stuff like Monet, Pissaro or even a little Van Gogh-- thick strokes emphasizing general over details-- visable brush strokes...

or even more specifically if you look at the art on the inserts for the recent STAR WARS original trilogy DVD box set-- that's the look I was hoping for.

I could probably create a decent version by distorting a capture using photoshop filters- but I was thinking I'd like to do BIG versions (6 foot wide or so at 2.35:1) for my livingroom with real paint on canvas.

Guess I'll probably put an ad on craigslist and hope to find a starving art student, lol.

 

[DustinLC]

I'm not starving but how much are you paying .

Big is my game. I have a 5x6 footer of an elephant on my wall . Unfortunately, such a size require a rental truck for the canvas and 40hrs of actually painting time lol. Even a starving art student will charge you an arm and a leg for that. ( The canvas that size alone will cost you $100). Since it's abstract you're after, it'll just cost you the materials and cookie and milk for my little girl .

Disclaimer: the above is a personal opinion and is not a worldwide effort to discredit abstract artists or artistic skill of two year old.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Depending on size and whatnot: I was thinking spending between $250-500 on each painting to pay for the supplies and pay a little for time (I know it's less than it's worth). If your two year old can do something similar to the stuff on the Star Wars inserts, give her my email.

 

[DustinLC]

Can't give you her email. She's underage. I'll let you know in 16 years .

I'll go home and check out the inserts to see what you are so fond of.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

I edited the URL. Once you get the player installed it's the easiest thing in the world, I swear. On my Windows box I just hit CTRL-s and the screenshot pops up in the upper left hand corner of the screen and fades out. Then I go into the pictures directory I pointed it to... and LO there it is!

 

[Sam Posten]

www.irfanview.com

Get it, use the free screen capture tool. End of story (well, you might have to run some win emulation software on a mac)...

Sam

 

[Chazz_S]

I've done some artwork base off screen caps before, here's an example: The Return of the King

I'd highly recommend using an actual screencap program than taking a photo- just seems like too much trouble for too crappy a result. Hopefully the program posted in the post above works for you, as mine came with my video card actually (ATI)

 

[Andrew Pratt]

I just went to talk with the guys in our communications dept that all run mac's and he said that the Mac OS has a built in screen grab utility...something like Control Shift and either 3 or 4 depending on if you want to define the area or grab the whole screen. Either way that would be the easiest way to get a high quality image...simply pause the movie at the approp spot and grab the image. You can then print it or save it to your hard drive.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Andrew,

Does that actually work- did you try? It sounds the same as the windows desktop screen cap utility (printscreen ot alt-printscreen)-- but because DVD playback is ofen done via a hardware overlay process- the captures will come up black.

At least on Windows-- but I assume the mac one would be the same.

-V

 

[NickSo]

:b

 

[Andrew Pratt]

:b Damn typo's No I haven't tried it as I don't own Mac's. I didn't know it didn't work on PC's as I used to do screen grabs of some AVI (or .mov) files for a project I was doing a while ago so I assumed it wouldn't be different for DVD's.

 

[DustinLC]

Chazz, that water color is great! Here's some movie stuffs I've done.

 

[DustinLC]

I will try and report back. Just too easy and good to be true though.

By the way, I have a G5, OS X .

 

[Andrew Pratt]

Nice work! I really like the B&W's

 

[Chazz_S]

Thanks Dustin, likewise! Go LOTR!