Camtasia, although available through free trial, will have watermarks on the video when used by a free trial. In order to use Camtasia's full experience, please use the Camtasia software on DSC computers. 

When you open up the main application, as shown below, you will have three options.

"New Project" will open up the editing software, and allow you to import formerly recorded videos, and do some basic cutting/editing work.

"New Recording" will open up the recording software, and allow you to record your screen, your face, your audio and the system audio. 

"Open Project" is a way to open up an existing Camtasia project you have already been working on. Note: a half-finished editing job from another video editing software like Premiere Pro or Da Vinci will not open in Camtasia. 

Before starting to record, make sure that the programme/website that you wish to record has been pulled up already. This will make the process easier. 

1. Firstly, select the area of your screen that you wish to record. The area that is being recorded is marked by a dotted green line. You can change the size of the recording capture by pressing the button "Custom" and moving the dimensions of the green box to whatever you wish to capture. NOTE: The default setting for changing the size of the box is locked to the same dimensions as your screen: if you want more control over the size of the box recording, press the lock button once, to unlock the dimensions and draw the box. Hovering over an application will make Camtasia snap to the dimensions of that application's browser size. 

2. Press the "OK" button to confirm the choice.

3. While recording, you also have the option to record your own video alongside the screen recording. You can toggle between this option using the button, as pictured below. Press on the arrow next to the Camera button to select which camera to take input from: if you have more than one camera attached to your computer.

4. You can also choose to record an audio narration of your screen recording, and you can toggle those settings with the button below. Press the arrow button next the microphone option to toggle between the available microphones attached to your computer. You can test the audio by speaking naturally into the microphone, and seeing whether the dB count is picking up your voice. If the microphone input levels are too soft or too loud, adjust them with the little slider indicated below. 

4. You can also record the system audio of your computer (useful, for example, if you wish to screen record the native sounds of an application, or if you wish to screen record a video). In order to adjust the settings for this, press blah blah blah.

5. To get started, press the record button. The screen will blacken, and you will have a 3 second countdown before the recording begins. The Camtasia Settings box will disappear: so you cannot adjust settings mid-recording! When you have finished recording, right-click the icon for Camtasia in your taskbar, press on "stop Recording" and the recording will stop. NOTE: In order to make the editing easier in the future, it might be better to not record your full screen, and have the Camtasia icon outside of your recording area. 

6. The recorded video will automatically be transported to Camtasia's native editor. 

Now you need to edit your recorded video! Although edits are a largely personal choice, this tutorial will walk you through some useful editing tips for a screen-recording video. 

Renaming Files

Working with any editing files, make sure the videos you've recorded are properly labeled. In order to do this, right-click on the file you just recorded, where it's stored within the Media Bin, and select "Rename File".  This simply allows for better organization, especially if you are working with multiple Camtasia Videos. 

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Basic Cuts

When you press the play button on the main screen, you will notice that in the Timeline view underneath, a cursor is running along with the video you have recorded, showing the timestamp/audio-wave of the images on the screen. Bracketing this cursor is a smaller green cursor to the left, and a smaller red cursor to the other side. These mark the limits of a selection of the video.

Simply drag them away from the teal-coloured central cursor to make a selection of the video that you do not want, and once you are certain of the timestamps, right-click the selection and select, "Delete Range".

Alternatively, if you simply want to split the video into several segments, drag the teal coloured cursor to where you want the cut to happen, then right-click on the cursor and select, "Split All" to split the video. 

Dubbing New Audio

1. This can be useful if you wish to record the audio of a segment again, but keep the video! Firstly, you need to separate the audio and video tracks from each other. Click on your recorded segment, and select the option "Separate Audio and Video", as highlighted below. You should now have two separate tracks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Click on the audio track (you can tell which is the audio track, because the audio waveforms should be the background image of the audio track) and remove the track. You can either delete it all together by selecting "Delete", if you are sure you will not need it, or you can mute it, pressing "Silence Audio". 

3. Now, select the Tab called "Voice Narration" on the left-hand side panel. This will open up an interface that will help you record new audio over the video you already have. At the tob of the tab, you can select which microphone to use, if you have multiple attached to your computer, and check the audio levels, as shown below. If you have a script text you wish to insert, you can do so in the large blank square underneath, so you can see your script and record at the same time. 

4. Move the cursor back to the beginning of the track--or wherever you want your audio to begin, and press the big red record button to record new voice narration. To stop the recording, press the big red button again, once finished. 

Regrouping Video and Audio

1. To group together any pieces of media in the editor, so that visual or audio effects can occur on all pieces of the recording, shift+click on all of the pieces, then right-click on the selected objects, and press "Group."

Adding Video/Audio Effects

1. On the left-hand side tab section, press on the Tab called "Video Effect" or "Audio Effects" to pull up the selection possible. There are a variety of basic editing options to change the way the video sounds and feels. Some useful options are:

• Clip Speed: Change how fast the recording plays! If you're screen-recording a speedpaint, for instance, you can speed the drawing up, so it takes up less of the viewer's time!
• Keystroke: Displays when common keystroke combinations (like Command + V or Shift + Alt + Delete) are used by the user when recording, and displays them on the screen, to elucidate the viewer, if you don't want to narrate your actions. 
• Remove a Colour: Useful for many reasons, but especially if you're recording your face on a greenscreen, you can easily take your greenscreen out of the frame
• Colourize/Colour Adjustment: Allows you to refine the image on screen in a multitude of ways. 
• Noise Removal: Can minimize/remove the background noise of any audio recording, so your voice narration is better isolated. 
• Fade In/Fade Out: allows for several different sections of audio to more naturally come in and out of the recording. 
• Captions: Onscreen captions for what your voice is saying, if you are interesting in hard-coding accessibility!

2. To use these video and audio effects, simply select the effect you want, and drag it to the piece of of the recording you want it to effect. In the image below, I used Colourize! 

3. In order to edit these effects, use the sidebar on the right which should pop up after dragging your effect to your media. If it does not immediately pop-up on the right-hand sidebar, rightclick on your piece of recording, and press "Show Properties", which will reveal the sidebar, and allow you to adjust your video and audio effects as needed!