High resolution still video capture on the Mac?

August 28, 2009 9:01 AM

In Snow Leopard, has Photo Booth been upgraded to utilize the full resolution of the iSight or external webcams? I want to do one of those DIY wedding photo booth deals, but my 10.5 version of Photo Booth limits resolution to 640x480. Alternatively: will any piece of software on the Mac let me capture a still image from my Logitech 9000 at its full 2MP resolution? I have searched in vain for webcam software that doesn't limit me to 640x480. Help!

And finally: I'm aware of remote tethering, but it doesn't seem to be a possibility with my Canon PowerShot SD500. If I found a camera that allowed me to do this, what software would best emulate Photo Booth for a kiosk-like still-photo capture setup?

posted by thejoshu to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Have you tried Quicktime pro? (or whatever it's called in SL). I accidentally made a video of myself trying it the other day; not quite a kiosk app but it's simple enough and should be able to get the full res of your camera if it's Mac-compatible.
posted by tkbarbarian at 11:48 AM on August 28

There's an application here (free) that pulls 1.3 mp from the iSight. I've used it before. It's better than 640x480 at any rate.
posted by caution live frogs at 12:41 PM on August 28

I don't know of any programs like PSRemote for the Mac, you could get a compatible camera and boot camp it.

If you don't care about on screen previews, you could load CHDK on your current Powershot and setup a automatic shutter (via delayed motion detection + timer), with an EyeFi card to automatically send pictures to your Mac. Then do some processing to get photo booth like snaps/prints.
posted by wongcorgi at 1:03 PM on August 28

Running SL here on a brand new MBP, and it's still 640x480 with no obvious way to go larger. Also opened up the images it produces outside of Photo Booth to make sure it's not just displaying things smaller. Definitely limited.
posted by floam at 9:34 PM on August 29

Thanks, guys.

If I went with QuickTime, it would go like this: I'd have Automator start video capture, wait a second, and end video capture. Then I'd use AppleScript to trigger Photoshop's Import > Video Frames to Layers feature, and then use Photoshop's actions to just combine all the layers, since I only want one frame.

I finally found an app that gives me full-resolution stills from webcams. It's called Capture IT!, and it's somewhat poorly-designed, but with GUI scripting I was able to trigger the screen grabs.

Future thread-readers, feel free to MeFi-mail me for more details about the ridiculous Automator script that manages all of this.
posted by thejoshu at 7:46 AM on September 1

Also, QT still doesn't seem to get me beyond 640x480 with the iSight, while Capture IT! gets me to the native 1600x1200.
posted by thejoshu at 7:52 AM on September 1