Videos and photo at the SAME TIME!

So there you are, attending a wedding of a dear friend or relative. You want to take photos and video. But you only have two hands. Taking pictures is going to be difficult because the lighting isn't best, but you don't want to disturb others by having the flash going off and frankly the noises your camera makes can be bothersome. But you don't just want video, you want beautiful pictures because it may be a little while before wedding photos are sent to the bride and groom by the photographer. In some weddings there are no videographers to catch the special moments either.

The solution: If your camera has video capabilities, use the video. Make sure beforehand that you have a back-up battery for your camera and plenty of card space. It might be wise to invest in a few gigs of memory card. I have one that is 16g so that I never have to change cards, and I also keep a couple of 2g in case my 16 card goes bad.

After you put your video clips on the computer, here is how you take photos from the video.

First, open the Windows "Paint" program. If you aren't familiar with it you will find it in the Accessories folder in your All Programs menu in your Start button.

Second, watch the video in as high definition as you can on your computer screen. Use full screen for viewing if you can. While watching the video, hold down the "Alt" key so you are ready to take your picture at a moments' notice. When you see a picture perfect moment, and while holding down the Alt key, press the "Print Screen" key. This is usually found at the top right of your keyboard. Then pause your video, go to the "Paint" program and paste the screen shot you just made by either holding down "CTRL" and pressing the "V" or going to the "Edit" menu in Paint and selecting "Paste".  You can then save the photo as a .jpg file and also print the picture. After you save the file, then go back and crop or change colors or whatever and save that file under a different file name. That way if you accidentally mess up the edited version you can just go back to the original.

So in short:

Take video. Open Paint. View video on computer screen. Alt+PrintScreen to take a screen shot. CTRL+V to paste into Paint and then save or edit or print as you like. If you miss the shot you wanted you can always play that piece of video again to get the shot you like. Now you can have video and pictures that are essentially taken at the same time.