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Using the Timelapse app on my Sony NEX-6 camera, I get an AVI which contains an MJPEG stream.

However, I'd like to take all the individual frames into Lightroom as normal photos, to do my post-processing. Is there a way to extract the individual JPEG frames in a lossless fashion, e.g. without resaving them? As I understand it, MJPEG format is essentially just a lot of JPEG files contained within (in this case) an AVI container.

I would prefer to do this on a Mac (I normally use Lightroom and Photoshop), but any application that does it would be fine, I'll find an OS to run it!

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  • Could you please add to the question which OS you're using and which photo/video editing applications you have? This helps people to answer your question.
    – Saaru Lindestøkke
    Jan 9, 2013 at 21:03

3 Answers 3

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The easiest way is to use ffmpeg or avconv.

The command:

ffmpeg -i mjpegvideo.avi -vcodec copy frame%d.jpg

will create a series of jpeg without reencoding.

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If you have access to Photoshop you can open the MJPEG in Photoshop and apply the same edits there as you would in Lightroom.

The instructions below are carried out on a Mac with Photoshop CS5.1 but for Windows it should be comparable.

  1. Open Photoshop
  2. Open your MJPEG file
  3. Go to Window -> Workspace -> Motion
  4. Now a timeline appears on your screen where you can play and scrub through your footage.
  5. Go to Layer -> New Adjustment Layer and choose the adjustment you want.
  6. When you're done editing go to File -> Export -> Render Video and choose the desired video settings.

Make sure to use adjustment layers, as a simple adjustment will only affect one frame.

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I'm not sure what you mean by "without re-saving them" ... I use a software freestudio to extract the JPEG files and then reorganize & edit the pix in LR,PS or AE...

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  • Without re-saving means that the JPEG information is saved to file untouched, rather than a simple screen grab being made and then saved as JPEG (as would happen if the video was of another codec). As the MJPEGS are already compressed, I'd rather not re-compress them.
    – RipperDoc
    Jan 9, 2013 at 15:41
  • @RipperDoc i think this program actually extracts the frames, i'm not sure though cuz i never analyzed the data from the files this program created (maybe when i get home i'll check-if i remember...) anyway the program is free so u can try it out yourself & if it doesn't do the job just uninstall it afterwards
    – June
    Jan 9, 2013 at 16:07
  • by without re-saving he means what's called lossless extraction (or, conversion), I think.
    – n611x007
    Jan 9, 2013 at 17:45
  • I think its really more like "no further losses" since both MPEG and JPEG are already lossy compression formats. Its important to note that a video frame may not be complete in the MPEG file, as the encoding uses a difference from prior frames, so you may have to include image data from many prior frames
    – Pat Farrell
    Jan 10, 2013 at 1:26
  • Thanks Pat, but note that I am talking about MJPEG, not MPEG, which I think makes the case a bit different!
    – RipperDoc
    Jan 10, 2013 at 10:48

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