If you don't know how freeze a frame on Final Cut Pro You should not worry, since in the following article, we are going to present the 3 methods that this program offers so that you can perform this function.
It can freeze a frame in Final Cut Pro?
If you are editing a video, whether advertising, documentary, report, news, among others, and you need to freeze a frame of it, with the powerful Final Cut Pro tool, you can do it easily and simply. You may think that the process is somewhat tedious, although the truth is not, you just have to follow the steps that we indicate in this article and everything will work out like a professional.
This program from the bitten apple company offers up to 3 methods so you can freeze a frame of a video de Final Cut Pro in the place you want. The first thing you can do is make a “suspension” of a part of the video by paralyzing time or making it slower, this would be the first method. LThe other 2 methods simply have the objective of converting the video frame into an image; one of these has the function of completely exporting a fixed image file, either of the type:
- .jpg
- . Png
- .tiff, among others.
This would be the second method, which is called (Save current frame), where you have to import it into Final Cut Pro later and it will work like any other type of multimedia file. The third method is generally the most used, since it allows you to generate the photo within the program, which is known as a resource for internal use called "add freeze frame”. We have already described the 3 methods that you have available so that you can freeze a frame in Final Cut Pro. Now we will show you how to put them into practice.
Method 1: Suspension
You can apply this method only to files that have been edited in the program and are being worked on in the timeline. Therefore, when you have the video on the timeline, position yourself in the frame you want to freeze and do the following:
go to menu Modify > then to reschedule > then to the option suspension. Another way that you can access this function is through the icon of the reprogramming options at the bottom left of the viewer > and select “Suspension”. Surely you wonder Is there a keyboard shortcut for this? The answer is yes, you just have to do the key combination Shift/Shift – H.

Method 2: Export the frame
The second method is a little longer to do, since it is a solution that aims to work in continuity both “freezing / thawing” a frame of the video you are working on; or if what you want is to continue having the audio active during the frozen frame. If so, you have to export that frame in a specific file type that is:
- .jpg
- . Png
- .tiff
To choose the frame in which you are going to work, you just have to follow these steps: Select the frame to freeze > go to the menu Archive > then Share > then click on save current frame. You can also do it like this, click on the button Share > save current frame. Now you are in the export window and you will select the Settings option > choose the type of file to work with “.jpg, .png, .tiff, among others”.
Just click next and give the file a name > then select the location on the internal or external hard drive where you want to store the file. Then you just have to import this frame file as follows:
Menu Archive > after Import > then Content > you select the photo or image. You can also do the keyboard combination “Command + I”. Keeping the image selected in the explorer, you edit it like any other type of file and by default the program will give each of the still images a duration of about 4 seconds. Unlike the previous method where the freeze could be smoothed out, the video stoppage will be much more abrupt here as it will jump in. This is how you can freeze a frame in Final Cut Pro.

Third Method: Add Freeze Frame
The last of the methods is add a freeze frame. You can do this function from a frame that reads the playback bar of the video that is being worked on in the program. To do this you have to do the following:
go to menu Edition > then add freeze frame or the combination “Option – F” > here the video is clicked and it is divided by a new still image video, which is added by Insertion. As you can see, the result is very similar to method 1, which is the suspension method, only that in this case there are 3 very notable differences:
- First: In case you have not modified the duration of the default images at the beginning, the duration of the images will be 4 seconds and not 2 seconds.
- Second: With this method the video will be cut, which means that it is edited and not, as in the first method, it remains intact.
- Third: Unlike method 1, in this one it will not be possible to perform a smoothing at the time of the entry of the freeze frame, since this function will be disabled since the work you are doing does not include a momentary change of the video playback characteristics, but rather you are making a different video from the original.
In case the active explorador and you want to freeze a frame where the playback bar is positioned, again you must go to the menu Edition, however, this time you will not see the Add freeze frame option, since this function has changed its name and is known as “connect freeze frame”, even though the keyboard shortcut remains the same which is “Option – F”. Find out how you can save project in final cut pro .