TechSmith Camtasia 26.2.4.20997

TechSmith Camtasia is a screen recorder and video editor for Windows and macOS. It is built for tutorials, product demos, training lessons and other videos that show work on a computer screen. Recording, editing, narration, captions, quizzes and export all happen in one application. Camtasia is paid software sold in several plan tiers. The entry tier adds a watermark to videos exported from the editor.

Recording the screen, camera and sound

You launch Camtasia Recorder from the editor. It has four inputs you can switch on or off individually: the screen, a built-in or external camera, a microphone and system audio.

The capture area can be the full screen, a region or a single application window. You can set a region by dragging handles or typing exact pixel dimensions. Recording reaches up to 4K at 60 frames per second.

Besides the picture, Camtasia records mouse movement, clicks and keystrokes as editable data. The Recorder also captures metadata that drives later effects: cursor smoothing, a larger or replaced pointer, automatic zoom-and-pan toward cursor activity, and detection of filler words in the narration.

Rev layouts after a recording

If Rev is enabled, it opens as soon as a recording stops. Rev is a quick styling step. The user picks a layout (screen-focused, camera-focused or balanced) and sets a background of colors, patterns or animations. They also apply preset effects to the screen, cursor and camera. SmartFocus, one of these presets, zooms and pans to key cursor actions.

The result arrives in the Camtasia editor as one Rev media clip. You can reopen it in Rev and change it at any time, or split it so different sections get different looks. For detailed work, you can unpack the clip to place screen, camera and audio on separate tracks. After that, you can no longer edit the layout in Rev.

Editing on the Camtasia timeline

Camtasia’s editor is drag-and-drop. Recordings, images, video files and PowerPoint slides go from the media bin onto timeline tracks. The playhead marks where splits, freeze frames and partial exports happen.

• Split and trim: cut clips at the playhead or shorten them by dragging their edges. A ripple split cuts all tracks and moves everything after the playhead.
• Cut versus delete: cutting closes the gap, deleting leaves it; Magnetic Track removes gaps automatically.
• Extend frame: holds a single video frame for a chosen duration so the picture waits for the narration.
• Replace: new media dropped onto a clip keeps its effects, transitions and animations.

On the canvas, you can move, scale and crop camera footage for picture-in-picture. Custom animations change a clip’s position and scale over a span of time.

Callouts, cursor effects and visual assets

Camtasia adds annotations such as callouts, arrows, shapes and sketch motion directly over the video. It also includes more than 150 transitions, over 30 filters and a library of animations. Motion paths move an image or Lottie file along points the user sets. AI background removal replaces the backdrop of webcam video with an image or moving background, without a green screen.

Cursor effects scale, restyle or replace the pointer, and recorded cursor paths can be smoothed. Themes and templates store reusable logos, text and colors. The asset library supplies motion backgrounds, music, sound effects, stock footage and icons.

Narration and audio cleanup

Audio tools in Camtasia keep the voice at a steady level, lower background music beneath speech and reduce plosives and other common faults. Background noise removal and automatic removal of “ums” and hesitations work on the voice track. Text-based editing transcribes the recording so you can edit it like a document. Deleting a passage of text removes that part of the video.

Transcripts also produce captions and subtitles, including social-style dynamic captions in many languages. Higher tiers add AI script writing, generated voice-over from a large set of voices, AI avatars as on-screen presenters and translation of scripts and audio.

Quizzes for training videos

You can place quizzes and surveys at a point on the timeline or attach them to a clip so they move with it. Questions can be multiple choice, fill in the blank, short answer or true/false, scored or unscored. Viewers answer them in TechSmith Smart Player. For learning management systems, Camtasia can report results through SCORM.

Exporting and sharing

Camtasia exports a local MP4, GIF, WebM or M4A audio file using presets or custom settings. Batch export creates several versions at once. You can export a highlighted range of the timeline on its own. Direct upload goes to YouTube or to TechSmith Screencast. On Screencast, colleagues can comment and you can group videos into collections.

Camtasia plans compared

Each plan includes everything in the plans before it. Team, business and education licensing is also offered.