Still Frames JPEG pictures: iMovie '11/QuickTime

Creating Still Frames as JPEG pictures in iMovie '11 and QuickTime

In previous versions of iMovie, it was easy to create still frames and export them as JPEG. There used to be a menu option 'View in Finder' that would do the trick. This menu option has been removed in iMovie '11. Some posts have indicated it is due to the fact that still frames are now small movies instead of single frames.

I follow these steps to create still frames from movies.

1. Import the movies into iPhoto.
2. Open iMovie and import the iPhoto movies into it. A dialog box should ask you to do this every time you open iMovie.
3. In the clip area in the bottom, move to the frame that you want.
4. Right-click (control-click) and select Add Still Frame to Project. This will add the still frame to the project area. 
5. In the frame in the project area, select the drop down box and select Clip Adjustments.
6. For the duration, change it to 1 second. The default for me was 4 seconds. Check the box for Applies to All Stills. When you export below, this will give you one picture for each frame.
7. Repeat this process for all the stills that you want.
8. Now it is time to create the JPEG pictures for each frame. Select the Share menu item from iMovie.
9. Select Export using QuickTime.
10. Select Movie to Image Sequence in the Export drop down box.
11. Click Options.
12. Select JPEG format and frames per second as 1. Combined with the length of the still frame from above, this will give you one picture per still frame.
13. Click OK, then Save.

Update: When I created this post, I was using iMovie 11. Somehow, I am now using 10.0.9 and the option to Export does not exist, it has been replaced with Share. The Share menu does not have an option for QuickTime.

If I export to Image, then the first still frame will be created. For each still that I wanted, I added it to the start of the timeline and saved as an image. It is tedious. I have seen other posts for installing additional software, but this seems like such a natural thing to do that I cannot believe iMovie does not have a simple option.