There are tons of software for creating a slideshow DVD movie of your photographs but DI reader Pedro Almeida from Lisbon has a reverse requirement. He wants to extract still pictures from his Wedding video DVD for printing.The professional wedding photographer who produced the photo DVD has the source images but he's probably charging lot of money for the service. Pedro writes:
The Wedding DVD was sold to me by a photographer and has cost me a great deal of money.Pedro, there are two solutions to your problem as explained here:
One of the DVD menu choices is to view all the wedding photos as a slideshow presentation. The photographer will take an additional charge of 3,5 euros for printing each photo.
Can we split this DVD photos presentation into separate image files like GIF or JPG. Then I will be able to print the photos myself and it would just cost me 0,5 euros each photo!!
Solution A: - Play the DVD movie inside a media player and capture the scenes (or video frames) that you would like to print. A word of caution - normal screen capture commands like Print Screen won't work with capturing DVD videos and all you will get is a blank screen.
Read our previous guide on on how to screen capture scenes from DVD movies.
Solution B: - The second solution involves ripping the slideshow DVD into AVI or WMV files and then using a video extractor software to convert that ripped video into still photographs.
Use a DVD backup software like Handbrake to convert your Wedding DVD vob files into AVI format. Then extract image frames from this AVI video using AVCutty.
AVCutty is smart and can automatically detect the scene changes in video files. Open the extracted photographs in an software like Picasa and select the ones that you like to print. Burn them onto a CD from Picasa and just walk into your nearest photo printing shop.
And yes, all the software mentioned above are absolutely free. The quality of extracted images may not match that of original pictures but they would still be good enough.
Reader Comments
Use VLC Media player, that's it.
Written on 1/2/07 10:58 PM
Being a Professional Photographer this post troubles me. There are copyright and other legal issues that have to be considered. By doing this you are in effect stealing from the Wedding Photographer. If you had paid for the images to be given to you in usable format then you wouldn't have to 'steal' them in this way out of the video DVD.
Being a photography related site I expected a bit more from this blog.
Written on 2/2/07 4:02 AM
Cyberlink's DVD player software has a specific button for capturing single frames if you have it.
Written on 2/2/07 8:15 AM
Dear "Anonymous Photographer",
In fact, in my opinion you are wrong. I'm not stealing anything because we are talking about 2 different services:
a)producing a weadding DVD and b)printing photos.
I've contracted (and paid every cent for) the 1st service.
I did not contract the 2nd service.
What I would say is that what I´m doing is taking advantage of the current available technology to be able to get something myself (that will be my effort) through the DVD that I´ve paid for. In fact, the quality for the photos won't be as good as the photographer service, but that would be my choice, right?
It's kind of: if you would build a some pants (with everything necessary bought and paid by you!), instead of buing it already done..
Pardon me for being direct, but maybe the photographer should make also use of the technology availabe to prevent this kind of situation. We all make use of what is available to reach our purposes in a correct way.
Thank you so much to Amit to help me purely on software matters.
Pedro Almeida
Lisbon
Written on 6/2/07 4:06 PM
Dear Pedro,
I am not a photographer; in fact, I found this blog thread because I was searching for a way to do the very same thing you wish to do. My daughter had some senior/modeling photos made from a very expensive and exclusive studio. We paid for some of the photos to be printed, and a dvd containing a slideshow of all of them. I want to do the same thing as you - print out the photos from the dvd.
No disrespect, but at least let's be honest here - stealing is stealing, no matter how you justify it. The photos or video, mine or yours, are the copyrighted property of the photographer. If either of us wants to reproduce them without paying the photographer, it is stealing, period. If you want to test that statement, just contact your photographer and ask permission to do what you are asking about doing.
It's always irritating to me that people want to somehow justify their theft and convince others that they aren't stealing. Lets call a spade a spade shall we.
Written on 30/6/07 6:26 PM
LOL :-)
Dear Stealing is something which I donot want to describe in legal terms, here the DVD is myne.
Okay let me ask u something do I have the rights to trash the DVD yes you have to say YES because i have paid for it.
So as I own the DVD now I can take this DVD to another photographer and ask him to convert to Blueray disk or get a new audio as back ground so what is wrong in extracting my own photos from my own DVD.
Any way the photographers contaract doesnt mention this clause :-)
Written on 7/8/07 6:19 AM
Anonymous said...
Being a Professional Photographer
Pedro Almeida said...
Dear "Anonymous Photographer",
Anonymous said...
Dear Pedro,
I am not a photographer;
Make your mind up please! I t seems pretty clear that you initially said you wqere a photographer, and professional one at that!
Anyway Pedro, you can use almost any of the mainstream DVD player (software) such as Nero Cyber?Link etc, just find the snapshot/screencapture button and click away, not the most aesthetically pleaseing of resolutions, but effective nonetheless.
PS I am not a photographer, professional or otherwise...
Written on 10/8/07 6:21 PM
I do this sort of work professionally and find it disappointing that people are giving such clear instructions on how to steal. Admittedly, we do take in to account that this happens and therefore drop the resolution and quality of images provided, however it's still unfortunate that the theft occurs in the first place.
As a rule, I refuse to teach people how to steal media. I do not show my mother how to copy dvds and I don't post clear statements on popular blogs teaching others to steal professional photos.
I earn little enough as is without people going behind my back and making illegal reproductions of my work.
Written on 13/9/07 2:55 PM
How curious the "professionals" can make a legal judgement without reviewing the written contract between the parties involved.
Any business person worth their salt should employ a contract explicitly stating what is and is not an acceptable form of use.
If the contract is violated it is then up to the involved parties to seek a resolution.
The information contained in this post is valuable and can be used either legally or illegally. I in fact found the information useful for my legal use in extracting stills from videos I produced myself.
I see absolutely no reason this information should not be dessiminated. It is of value and interest and no laws are being broken.
Written on 2/10/07 8:06 PM
I received a dvd from my sister that contains alot of old family pictures set to music. It's incredibly annoying, because I originally only wanted jpgs of the images. I have tried talking with her about it over the phone as we live some distance away from one another, but I can't tell if she's truly ignorant and doesn't know how to simply burn the jpgs onto a cd as a data cd, or if she thinks this gives her some sort of control over the sharing of the images. Either way, I have been looking for a way to extract the images and keep peace in the family at the same time. I was hoping for a software that simply gives access to the images within the dvd files. I suppose making stills of the images is better than nothing. Thanks in Iowa.
Written on 9/10/07 12:57 AM
If you bought the dvd from the professional photographer (and it's a dvd of stills set to music, etc), you do NOT have the right to copy it in any form digital or otherwise.
It's the same as when you buy a book. You have the right to protect your copy and to read your copy and even lend it to people to read, but you don't have the right to take the livelihood of the author by reproducing copies for people.
You don't sign a contract at the Barnes and Noble or at Amazon.com do you? Nope...
It's not the same as buying material for making pants as someone mentioned. That's a pathetic analogy. When you contract a photographer to take your photos, you don't buy the cameras, paper, chemicals, printers, and expertise. You don't even BUY the IMAGES THEMSELVES. You only purchase the right to display those images you receive in their one incarnation.
In almost 100% of cases, images are copyrighted at the moment of capture to the one making them. You don't have to contractually state copyright, nor are you required to advise people as to their rights. They just exist, period.
I refer you all to www.ppa.com under the consumers link and the copyright link. If you need more information the people at the PPA are always willing to explain things to you.
Written on 26/10/07 12:29 AM