Certificate in Introduction to Camtasia Studio 8 Online Course

What Is Camtasia Studio?

Camtasia Studio is a suite of software tools that allow you to digitally record your computer's screen output. You can then edit and enhance these recordings and deploy the finished production (commonly referred as a screencast) by one or more different methods. Our goal for today's lesson is to better understand Camtasia's role in the creation of screencasts. We'll also examine the various hardware and software requirements for making successful screencasts.

Touring the Recorder Interface

Camtasia Recorder is the tool you'll use to capture your screen. In this lesson, you'll explore the Recorder interface, learn how to make screen captures, and examine some methods for assuring your captures always come out well.

Camtasia Recorder Effects

In our last lesson, you got an overview of the Recorder interface, how to make a capture, as well as ScreenDraw special effects available at recording time. Today, we'll look at those effects tools in greater detail—specifically, annotation effects, cursor effects, and the ScreenDraw tools.

Working With Tools Options

Having options is a good thing, and Camtasia gives you many. Today, we'll examine some of those options, including whether to start capturing the second you click the Record button or begin with a countdown. Another option we'll look at is having the Recorder track your keyboard actions. Our goal for today's lesson is to examine these and the various other options available in the Camtasia Recorder.

Entering the Camtasia Studio

Once you've shot your footage, the next step is to assemble that footage into its final form. For us, that means moving from the Camtasia Recorder to the Editor. In today's lesson, you'll have an introduction to the Editor workspace.

Introduction to Timeline Editing

In today's lesson, we'll explore more ways of manipulating your production via the Camtasia Editor. You'll learn more about the Preview window as well as some basic editing techniques. We'll spend some time discussing how to move objects around the Canvas, and we'll dig into the many tools the Editor has for fine-tuning your production.

Callouts and Cursor Effects

In today's lesson, we'll focus on callouts and cursor effects. Callouts are graphic elements you include to focus the viewer's attention on important content within your screencast. Cursor effects enhance the user experience by drawing your viewer's attention to what the cursor is doing. Today, you'll learn just how helpful these features can be in aiding the viewer's understanding of your video content.

Exploring the Visual Properties Tab

Fans of the old '60s TV show Batman may recall the spinning graphics that popped up during fight scenes, saying things like POW! WHAM! or CRUNCH! They'd explode from the middle of the screen, spinning as they grew to block all action behind them. Similarly, everyone's seen scrolling titles that move up the screen at the end of a production. You're also likely familiar with the old split-screen effect with footage of one event sitting beside footage from another. How these effects are achieved in Camtasia is the result of working with the Visual Properties tab and dragging objects around the Canvas. In this lesson, we'll examine the various animation and effect techniques made possible with this aspect of the Camtasia interface.

Creating Quizzes

Often, the purpose of your production is educational. To this end, Camtasia includes a Quizzing Service testing option that allows you to quiz your viewers, as well as gauge the success of your presentation. In today's lesson, we'll explore Camtasia's quiz-building interface and scoring service.

Editing Audio With Camtasia

Sometimes you begin a production with high-quality audio-source files. Sometimes your audio sources don't measure up! But either they're not bad enough to rerecord them, or rerecording just isn't an option. What do you do then? Fortunately, Camtasia's audio-editing tools are pretty good. In today's lesson, we'll look at the Audio tab—specifically, its volume adjustment, noise removal, and volume leveling tools—as well as the audio-specific interface elements of the Timeline itself.

Producing Your Video

Once you have your presentation edited and it's ready to go out to the world at large, it's time to run it through the Production Wizard. In today's lesson, we'll examine the various options at your disposal, discussing how to export your videos to online services like YouTube and Screencast.com, as well as how to use the wizard's custom settings to produce video for upload to your own website or to disk.

How People Respond to Multimedia Presentations

Humans are curious creatures, especially when it comes to making observations about ourselves. What often seems like common sense, when re-examined scientifically turns out to be wrong. So, in our closing lesson, we'll examine the research that's been done concerning the way people respond to multimedia presentations. The goals of today's lesson are to understand how people best absorb information and then apply that to your production habits.