There are different ways you can extract a frame from a video on Windows. Microsoft Photos, the default image viewer and editor in Windows OS, can help us easily grab frames from videos on PC without third-party photo or video tools. This method is by far the easiest. Just open the video in the Windows Photos app and pause it at the right moment. Choose Save a frame option, select folder to save the current frame as an image file onto your PC.
If you have other video editors installed on your PC, you likely have thought of using it to do quick frame grabs. In this guide, we will show you two easy ways to extract frames from a video using Adobe Premiere Pro on Windows computer.
You will be able to save a frame from a video in both the Source Monitor and Program Monitor with Premiere Pro.
Extract frames from video in Premiere’s Source Monitor
Launch Premiere Pro for Windows on your computer. Go to create a new project or open an existing one. Import the video to the Project panel. Double-click the clip in the Project panel to open it in the Source Monitor, or drag a clip from the Project panel to the Source Monitor.
Play the video clip, then pause at the desired frame, or drag and position the playhead at the desired scene you want to grab from the clip. Optionally click the Step Back 1 Frame, Step Forward 1 Frame buttons to select the perfect frame in the video. Then click the Export Frame button(camera icon). The Export Frame dialog box opens with the settings you can change, such as file name, image format(BMP, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF, etc.), path, import into project. Click OK button to export the selected frame from the video to your computer as still picture.
Save video frames in Premiere’s Program Monitor
Go to open an existing project or create a new one in Adobe Premiere on your PC. Drag clips from the Project panel onto a track in the Timeline panel to create a sequence and preview it in the Program Monitor above. You can find similar buttons in Program Monitor like those in the Source Monitor. Click Export Frame to open it in a new dialog. Optionally make changes to frame name, format, and location if like before you save the frame from video as photo to your PC hard drive.
More video frame export methods
- Windows Photos app, the default image viewer on PC, comes also with the ability to save video frames on Windows computer. Scroll up to the opening paragraph and refer to the linked page for more specific instructions.
- Adobe Photoshop, also from Adobe, offers video editing capabilities. You can use Photoshop to export photos from videos as well.
- VLC media player, an easy and free way to extract video frames via VLC video snapshot on Mac, and PC.
Screenshot a frame in a video?
Play the video and pause it at the point you want to take a still from it. Then use the Snipping tools in Windows or the Screenshot app on Mac to take a screenshot of a frame in the video. This method however can’t help you grab just the frame in its exact size and compromise image quality.