Saving 4k 6K Photos
A great tool we have in almost all of our current Lumix cameras is the ability to save 4K/ 6K photos from video footage the cameras are capable of producing. Chris Nichols from DPReview does a great job talking through the finer points of this special Lumix tool. Below is the video by Chris Nichols and Jordan Drake explaining why you might want to shoot 4k / 6K Photo Mode.
By the way, if you have taken great quality photos of your fondest memories it might be a good idea to have them physically printed in a photobook. Our friends over at Printed Memories can help you with the process of personalization. They also ship globally. Photobooks and albums are a great way to preserve your best photos.
Software for Extracting Stills
The one area that they neglected is software for pulling frames from the 4K or 6K footage. When I was using Lightroom and Aperture, they both had a great tool for extracting still frames from 4K Photo Mode video. Since the advent of the 6K Photo Mode, I’ve been struggling to find software for getting those still frames out.
The difference between 4k Photo Mode and 6K Photo Mode is the 6K is a new file format called HEVC also known as H.265. The older version 4K Photo Mode is known as H.264 and is widely supported where the new H.265 is not. That being the case, programs to work with HEVC are few and far between. Many people are using conversion software that will convert a H.265 (HEVC) into a H.264 files. I’m not sure if the conversion will reduce quality, but I’m guessing it will. The good news for Apple users is Apple’s new Photos App handles H.265 (HEVC) with no issues. It even has an option to save still images from the video file. This is the easiest option I’ve found. Unfortunately, I don’t have any suggestions for Windows users.
The video above is a short tutorial on how to use Apple’s Photos to extract the 18-megapixel stills from the H.265 video. If there are any Windows users out there that have suggestions for our MS readers I would be grateful for you to sound off in the comments below.