Image grabber/ Pic joiner

[mrmr38]

Does anyone know of a different image grabber/pic joiner The one below is great for the most part but tends not to work on some flicks. I have VLC player and they do "snap shots" but then pic joiner wont join them.

http://***************/files/3372520/PIC_JOINER.rar

[dj_poms]

Originally Posted by mrmr38

Does anyone know of a different image grabber/pic joiner The one below is great for the most part but tends not to work on some flicks. I have VLC player and they do "snap shots" but then pic joiner wont join them.

http://***************/files/3372520/PIC_JOINER.rar

SCREEN CAPTURES

note:
By far the quickest & easiest way to make & stitch screenshots in one operation is the free imagegrabber2 - http://www45.brinkster.com/antworkz/ install & use that & you'll not need to worry about reading the rest of the info below unless you have an unsupported clip, it does support most.


Windows Media Player 9

If you are using Windows Media Player 9, pause the video at the scene you wish to capture.
Press Ctrl+i (that's control key plus letter 'i'). Think of the 'i' as "image."
The "Save Captured Image" dialogue will open up. Choose the folder you wish to save the image in -- choose the file type (either JPG or BMP) and give it a file name (default name is "capture.") Click on "Save."
If you plan on doing any further manipulation of the saved image it's best to save it as a BMP to retain the original quality. You can use Paint (or other app) to save it as a JPG later


You can't take a screenshot if the program is using overlays to display the picture.
In windows media player you can disable overlays and screenshots will work, I recommend you re-enable them afterwards.
Tools>Options>Performance Tab>Advanced -- uncheck "use overlays" if it is checked. If that doesn't work, turn video acceleration all the way down.

Windows Media Player 10

Guess what? It's exactly the same procedure as WMP 9.

Media Player Classic

This is NOT a Microsoft product -- it's open-source (free) and works very well even though it looks like the old MS Windows Media Player 6.4. It's easy enough for beginners yet has options and features for the more advanced user. Get MPC from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/
On that page you will find it under the "Latest File Releases" with a "Download" link.
1. When you load the video in MPC pause it and go to [File], [Save Thumbnails].
2. A dialog should popup In the dropdown box where it says file name, choose whatever you want or use the default name
3. Set the file type to .jpg - .bmp images will not upload here
4. For the thumbnails options select however many rows and colums you want for the screenshots. The product of the columns and rows will tell you how many screenshots will be taken i.e. 4 rows x 4 columns = 16 screenshots
5. For image width, though the PreUpload page states 800 px should be the maximum width but you can go as high as 1024 px without causing too much trouble for users here
6. Referring to 4 and 5 - you should bear in mind the wider the image you make and (to a lesser extent) the more rows/colums you make, the larger the file size will be and remember you can't adjust quality. It's best to do no more than 8 rows by 8 columns for 800 px wide pictures and 6 rows by 6 columns for 1024 px wide pictures to keep under 256 KB . If you plan to use a different imagehost such as ************* or jpghosting.com or **********.com you can make the image wider and have more rows and columns.
7. Click [Save]
8. Depending on the length of the clip and your processor speed, it will take between a few seconds and 5 minutes to scan the video and produce the screenshots
NOTE 1 - you can't manually pick the frames you want, the only option is to adjust the number of rows OR columns to alter the number of images it shows and as a result your shots will differ
NOTE 2 - you get the "GetCurrentImage hr=8000ffff" error, you need to change the Playback Output. Go to [View], [Options], [Playback], [Output]. If the file type is .avi, .mpg or .wmv change the DirectShow Video button to "VMR7 (windowed)" or "VMR9 (windowed)". If the file type is .rm or .mov use the "DirectX 9" option. Now click [Apply] and screenshots now work.

BSPlayer

BSplayer is a free Windows player that plays back all kinds of media files
(avi /mpg /asf /wmv /wav /mp3 /ogm ) and specialises in video and divx playback.
Get it here: http://bsplayer.org/
By pressing Shift + P, BSplayer captures at the resolution you see the movie (what you see is what you get).
The button P captures at the movie's original resolution according to their Web site -- but I don't see the difference myself although I've only used it
infrequently. Whichever you choose, the image is saved in the same directory BSPlayer resides in and uses the filename format of 'bscap000.jpg' with each successive capture increasing the number by 1.

VLC Media Player

[Ctrl+S] to bring up your preferences, click [Video] and under "Snapshot", choose a folder to save screenshots and save them as .jpg format. Now click [Save] then [OK]. Now when you play the video in VLC, just click [Video] in the menu then [Snapshot] and the screenshots will be saved in your snapshot folder and voila!

PowerDVD
Click the camera icon.

ATI Media Player
If you have an ATI video card, you might have this.
Same as PowerDVD -- Just click the camera icon.

Other Screen Capture Utilities

IrfanView
Free for non-commercial use only.
Available at: http://irfanview.com/
Does a lot of stuff -- kind of like a Swiss Army Knife.

FrameShots (Formerly known as "SnatchIt")
Not free. Available at: http://frame-shots.com/

[dj_poms]

IMAGE JOINER

Download here --> imagejoiner.exe (1.3 Mb)

You do not need to install Image Joiner, simply save the imagejoiner.exe file to the location of your choice. To run it simply double click the .exe file & follow these steps

"General" tab -

If you have Nero Showtime &/or BSplayer installed you will see option/s to - "Use (your player) capture folder". If selected this will become the default location to search for images & to save images.

"Choose files" - Click "Search" to browse & select images (can be *.jpeg, *.jpg or *.bmp), images will load in alpha-numerical order, Same order as Windows "Arrange Icons by" - "Name".

"Image quality" - Default is 75%, this is usually a good compromise between picture quality & file size but may be adjusted if necessary.

"Columns" - Select number of columns between 1 & 10, keeping in mind it is a lot easier for most users to scroll down than it is across.

"Output file" - Specify file name & save location. Default is image dir\joined.jpeg

"Settings" tab:

"Add this to every image" - allows you to add text to each individual capture within your joined image, either the file name (very useful for compilation uploads), or your own custom text.

"Use this font" - contains all font options, type, size, color etc.

"Use this color as background" - is the background of your joined image.

"Sizing" tab -

The sizing options are very self-explanatory & are applied to each individual capture, the only thing to watch out for is distortion of image when changing sizes. For best results your size settings should have the same width x height ratio as the original captures.

Then just "Do It" :-)

--------------------------------------------------
Capture instructions for free version of BSplayer

A good free media player - http://bsplayer.org/

To set a custom capture folder & adjust other capture settings open "Preferences" in BSplayer & highlight "General".

Lower right of this pane you can set the folder, image types & name. As the captures you are taking will be processed further with image joiner it is recommended you use the better quality .bmp file type.

To set up custom key/mouse settings for capture operations highlight "Key definitions & WinLIRC", then in the middle section highlight "Capture frame - original image size" to find options for assigning a hot key &/or mouse button.

Now you are ready to capture a frame every time you use your hot key or mouse button during play.

Easy as that.

--------------------------------------------------
Capture instructions for Nero Showtime

This player is included in the Nero software bundled with many DVD burners.

To set a custom capture folder & adjust other capture settings open "Preferences" in Showtime, expand the "General" tree & highlight "Capture Frame".

The "Capture Frame" button in player controls will now save to that location every time you click it during play.

Easy as that.

--------------------------------------------------
Capture instruction for Windows Media Player

http://bsplayer.org/ :-)

If you don't have Nero Showtime you can download BSplayer, install it, do you captures, join them , all in far less time than it would take you to do just the captures alone with Windows media player ....... & you'll end up with a much, much better media player.

Now thats a answer

[mrmr38]

You definitely answered my question....

[biffaman]

more than made sense.the post is a tutorial and some mega links,many thanks for this cheers :sunny:

[dBlooch]

Thanks. I learned something today. It solved a problem I knew I wanted to do but was too lazy to ask questions.

[Blackcat16]

Try Image Grabber II it works much better and is very easy to use.

[mrmr38]

Originally Posted by Blackcat16

Try Image Grabber II it works much better and is very easy to use.

Yes that is what I use for the most part... but all the above info is Awesome

[Pad]

Thanks DJ Poms. Media Player Classic worked a treat and allowed me to get screencaps up on my first post. Cool. Thanks again.