Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: How to edit frames of a video?

This is topic How to edit frames of a video? in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-30-2008, 01:59 AM:

I am editing some video with Final Cut 5, and I need to do some frame by frame editing of the material. What do I need to use in order to do that? Is there a program in FCP? Or do I need to use something else? And a follow up to either question, how do I open the video to the frame I need to edit?

Thanks, guys.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-30-2008, 02:30 AM:

I don't quite understand what you're asking, so I'll give generic answers and hope that one of them covers it:

-Final Cut Pro is itself a program. It may seem like crazy speak, but it's true.

-When you have a video in the timeline, use the arrow keys to advance frame by frame forward and backwards. The timeline must be the selected window for this event to occur.

-When you are messing around with a clip in the Browser and its video shows in the Viewer, press the i key to set the IN point and the o key to set the OUT point. The Viewer must be the selected window for this to occur. Then you can drag this to the timeline. You can set different in and out points on the same clip in the Browser and drag it to the timeline again and it won't interfere with what is already in the timeline.

-You can get to the section of a video by either dragging the little yellow cursor thingy to where you need it, using the J, K, L controls, the arrow keys or the Space bar (which plays at normal speed) or by willing the specific frame of video onscreen via telekinesis.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-30-2008, 03:20 AM:

Thanks, Joe. I'm sorry. I didn't really ask what I was trying to ask for some reason (I'll chalk it up to being up so late), so I'll try again.

I would like to edit a particular frame of the video with something like a Photo Shop or Paint Shop Pro program, and have the painted frame stay in the video. I have some things that I would like to paint out of some of the frames of the video by hand. Is that possible with FCP, or do I need some other magical program that will allow me to extract the frame, let me manipulate it, then put it back in the video?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-30-2008, 03:41 AM:

You must export the frame. Put the little yellow cursor thingy (or playhead, whatever) on the frame in the timeline you want to export. Now go to FILE > EXPORT > USING QUICKTIME CONVERSION > choose STILL IMAGE as your FORMAT and under options choose some kind of uncompressed graphic format. Be sure to save it where you want to save it. Open up the image in Photoshop and edit away. Re-import the image into FCP and set its IN and OUT points on a single frame so its duration is only one frame (default length is 10 seconds). Go to the frame you want it to replace in the timeline and just put it over the existing frame on the video layer above it. You may need to do a really fast render (it will probably take less than a second even on an Apple ][e). Now the video plays back and your one frame special effect will blink by in an instant.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-30-2008, 03:55 AM:

Awesome! Thanks, Dude.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 06-30-2008, 06:11 AM:

One problem which you might have is that in digital photographs the pixels are square, i.e. the ratio of the number of horizontal to vertical pixels is the same as the aspect ratio of the image, but in video they are not. I can't remember the numbers now, but both NTSC and PAL video have numbers of pixels which mean, in effect, that the pixels are not square, though they are out in opposite ways. When I touched out some dust spots in an acient version of Photoshop, and then brought the frames back into Final Cut I ended up with a slightly squeezed image, and had to correct this in Photoshop before sending the frames back to the video. I later found something about this somewhere, I think it may have been in the 'Missing Manual' book for iLife.

Somebody who has a later version of Photoshop doesn't have this problem, so I assume that it now manages to detect whether it's dealing with square or rectangular pixels, but my old one doesn't.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-30-2008, 06:18 PM:

If you're just looking to take out some revealing detail which could incriminate you for life like Mark is, the pixel aspect ratio won't matter. He'll just export the frame, take it into Photoshop (where it may appear a bit stretched), edit out where you can see him running around nude in the background or maybe put Bobby's head on it instead, save and then reinsert into FCP. Mark's future is now saved from lifelong embarrassment. It never really bothered me drawing on a 720x480 frame in Photoshop unless I needed to draw a perfectly round circle for whatever reason.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-30-2008, 06:42 PM:

Don't let that get around, Joe.

[Wink]

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 06-30-2008, 06:47 PM:

Joe,

The problem I had was an odd one; as I remember it bringing the frame into Photoshop was ok, but exporting it back into the video was the problem, it ended up distorted in the video, almost as if the pxels were being converted in one direction, but not in the other. I can't remember the version number off-hand, it was one of he 'LE' ones, which came bundled with a Minolta film scanner.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-30-2008, 07:46 PM:

That might happen if you are working with anamorphic video. Exporting a frame might yield a 853x480 (NTSC) sized image. You edit it and then import it into the non-linear editor. However that program doesn't know what to do with it so it either stretches it or compresses it. You have to tell the editor the pixel aspect ratio of the still file sometimes.