Camtasia – Page 3 – The Logical Blog

December 7, 2015

Live, Interactive Online Class: Getting Started with TechSmith Camtasia Studio

Using Techsmith Camtasia Studio, you can quickly create videos of just about anything (computer software or PowerPoint presentations) and post your completed lessons on the web, YouTube, Vimeo, or Screencast.com. Your lessons can include videos of actions taken on your computer, animations, audio, quizzes, and surveys.

IconLogic's Kevin Siegel will lead this live, 100% hands-on course where you'll be introduced to the essential Camtasia Studio skills you need to know to get up and running with Camtasia as quickly as possible.

By the time you have completed this course, you will be able to record screen actions on your computer using the Camtasia Recorder. You'll take the recording into the Camtasia Studio and learn how to use the Timeline, add assets from the Clip Bin and Library, and how to publish content for the widest possible audience.

Learn to record screen actions
Learn to create projects in the Camtasia Studio
Learn about the Clip Bin and Library
Learn how to add audio Learn
Learn how to add a quiz
Learn how to Produce and Share content

November 12, 2015

Development Corner: Image Formats

by Sally Cox

When it comes to adding images to websites, PowerPoint presentations, or eLearning projects, you will likely be given JPEGs, GIFs, or PNGs. Let's review the three most common image formats and why/when to use them.

JPEG

JPEG is short for "Joint Photographer's Experts Group." It is one of the most popular formats used on the web and in eLearning. JPEG compression (the act of making the image as small as possible while retaining as much quality as possible) is "lossy" compression, which means every time you save an image as a JPEG, it loses quality.

The first image above is a JPEG taken with my iPhone. In the second image, I have opened the file in Photoshop and zoomed in on the child's face.

The little squares you see in the closeup image are called "pixels." Every time you save an image as a JPEG, it loses some quality by throwing out pixels. So if you are editing an image in Photoshop, always save it as the native format first, which is a PSD (Photoshop Document).

In the Save As dialog box in Photoshop, choose "Photoshop" as the file format. This saves as a PSD and preserves all details. Then after you finish your edits, do another Save As and choose "JPEG." The original PSD remains fully intact.

The image below is an example of the same photo saved multiple times as a low-quality JPEG. Notice that that there is a squarish effect happening and details are lost. This effect is known as "JPEG artifact."

JPEGs use the "RGB colorspace," which has more than 16 million colors. This allows for beautiful continuous-tone images with fluid gradations and a full range of colors. It's a good choice for continuous-tone, but does not allow transparency or animation.

GIF

The "Graphic Interchange Format" (GIF) works in the "Indexed colorspace," so its color palette is quite limited–just 256 colors. GIFs do, however, support transparency and animation (the once-hated animated GIF is making a comeback; I see it every day on Facebook). The oldest format on the web (created in 1989), GIFs are saved as "lossless" compression.

In the image below, I have saved the image as a GIF and it contains just 256 colors. You can see that the image has lost some of its detail.

Here is an example of an image containing just 8 colors–all detail is gone and the image has a "posterized" effect.

GIFs are perfect for "flat color," i.e., logos or flat design graphics that don't have gradations or continuous-tone (remember: only 256 colors).

PNG

The "Portable Network Graphic" was created (approved as a web standard in 1996) to provide high quality continuous-tone but also allow for transparency and animation.

PNGs are saved in the RGB colorspace, so they have the full range of 16 million+ colors. What I like best about PNGs is the ability to save transparency, which I use every day in my workflow. I save my graphics as high-quality PNGs and allow transparency (a checkbox I choose in Adobe Illustrator when I export a graphic to PNG).

In a recent project I wanted to use an image of a headset, and I needed the background to be transparent. I opened the image in Adobe Illustrator and set the Export PNG options to High Quality and set the Background Color to Transparency.

Thanks to the Transparency option, I had the freedom to overlay the headset on the green background shown below.

To Recap:

	JPEG	GIF	"PNG"
COLORS	16 MILLION +	256	16 MILLION +
TRANSPARENCY	NO	YES	YES
ANIMATION	NO	YES	YES
CONTINUOUS-TONE	YES	NO	YES
FLAT COLOR	NO	YES	YES

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If you'd like to attend some awesome 3-hour mini courses that focus on eLearning, check these out.

September 17, 2015

Adobe RoboHelp 2015: Embedding Multimedia from Camtasia Studio

by Willam van Weelden

Integration between RoboHelp and Adobe Captivate has always worked well. Kevin taught you this integration some time ago. Using multimedia from other applications such as Camtasia used to be much harder. A recent patch for RoboHelp 2015 makes using media from Camtasia and other applications easy.

To be able to follow these steps, ensure you have the latest RoboHelp 2015 patch installed. You can check this by clicking the help icon in the right top of RoboHelp and choosing Updates.

Use Camtasia to create an MP4 file.
Open your RoboHelp project.
Open the topic where you want to include the MP4 file.
On the Insert tab, Media group, click Multimedia.
Click the yellow folder to the right of Source and open the MP4 file you created with Camtasia.
Click the OK button.
Save and generate your project.

The multimedia is embedded in the output.

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Looking to learn RoboHelp? Come join me for my live, two-day online RoboHelp class (held once each month). And if you'd like to learn more about Dynamic Filters, check out my new 3-hour mini course: Adobe RoboHelp: Advanced Content Reuse.

July 31, 2015

TechSmith Camtasia Studio: The Clip Bin and The Library

by Kevin Siegel

As you add assets to your Camtasia Studio project (such as images, animations, and audio), those assets appear in the Clip Bin.

Once objects appear in the Clip Bin, you can add them to the Timeline by simply dragging and dropping. (Or you can right-click a Clip Bin object and add it to the Timeline at the Playhead position.) Each Camtasia project contains its own Clip Bin and the Clip Bin moves with the project as you back up the project to a server or other drive.

Unfortunately, you cannot share assets found in one project's Clip Bin with another project. That's where the Library comes in.

If you need to use project assets over and over, consider adding those assets to the Library. Once an asset is added to the Library, the asset is available to any Camtasia project on your computer.

When I teach Camtasia, I'm almost always surprised to learn that even veteran Camtasia developers ignore the awesome array of assets available in the Library. (Or perhaps they just didn't know about the Library's role.) Sure some of the music and effects can be a bit, shall we say, corny, but there's plenty of stuff you can really use in your projects. The assets are free from copyright restrictions so check them out. (As with Clip Bin assets, you can add them to the Timeline by dragging or right-clicking. And you can preview a Library asset by double-clicking… the asset will display in the Preview window at the right.)

If you cannot find a Library asset that you like, don't give up. TechSmith provides access to several additional assets online… free. In the image above, did you notice the Get more media link? If you click the link, you'll be taken to a TechSmith site where you can download a ton of additional Library Media. Did I mention it was all free?

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Looking to learn all things eLearning? Check out these live, online eLearning mini-courses (including a 3-hour introduction to Camtasia).

July 10, 2015

TechSmith Camtasia Studio 8: A Stitch in Time

by Kevin Siegel

If you select portions of a video clip on the Camtasia Studio Timeline and cut, you have historically ended up with multiple clips. At that point, it's possible to drag the split portions on the Timeline as needed or apply Visual effects. What you cannot do with multiple clips is apply an effect that spans multiple splits. I've always found that shortcoming to be an annoyance when working with Camtasia.

Fortunately, TechSmith addressed the issue in Camtasia 8 with a feature known as Stitching.

Stitching is enabled by default. You can confirm this by choosing Tools > Options. Select the Program tab and ensure that Enable auto-stitching is selected.

With Stitching enabled, I've selected a portion of a video on my Timeline and Cut it.

When cutting content in older versions of Camtasia, the cut portion of the video would be replaced by a split (two video segments). In Camtasia 8, instead of multiple segments you'll see a stitch between what would normally be two segments.

And here is where the Stitch feature pays dividends: I added an animation at the beginning of a video. In the image below, you can see that I've actually stretched the animation across the stitch itself (something that isn't possible when you're working with splits).

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Looking to learn all things eLearning? Check out these live, online eLearning mini-courses (including a 3-hour introduction to Camtasia).

April 16, 2015

eLearning: Become a Pedagogical Agent

by Jennie Ruby

If you've taken any of our Adobe Captivate, Adobe Presenter, or Articulate Storyline classes, you are probably aware that these programs provide a selection of screen characters–cut-out pictures of professional actors in business, medical, or business-casual clothing posed as if they are talking to you. They are intended for use as a kind of avatar of the trainer.

There is research that shows that using a screen character as a pedagogical agent or learning coach, who speaks informally and appears to be giving the lesson, increases learning. (My reference for this is Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard E. Mayer, eLearning and the Science of Instruction.)

Over the past few weeks, I've had multiple students ask how hard it would be to use themselves as the learning coach. Believe it or not, becoming a pedagogical agent is easier than you think.

Put Your Picture into the Lesson. Place a professional head shot of yourself, your trainer, or expert on the introductory slide (including job title, credentials, etc.), and then have that individual record the audio narration for the project.

Create your own screen characters. Photograph your expert on a green screen background for a full set of screen characters in various poses. The IconLogic Blog has a whole series of articles on how to do this:

Green Screen Part I

Green Screen Part II

Green Screen Part III

Green Screen Part IV

Create cartoons of yourself or your in-house experts. You can use the images over and over in on-going training videos. Here is one article to get you started: Using Bitstrips Characters.

If you don't have specific, known individuals in your company to act as your learning coaches, you are not stuck with the same four or five actors that come with your software. You can purchase additional screen characters from The eLearning Brothers. Or you can just make good use of some inexpensive clip art. By trimming out the background in ordinary office photographs, you can get some nice effects.

Whether you use generic actors or your own home-grown experts, screen characters are an excellent way to add the personalization, engagement, and local feel that will bring your eLearning to the next level.

Once you have your screen characters, how do you know what to make them say? Join me for an afternoon mini course on writing voiceovers to find out.

March 28, 2015

TechSmith Camtasia Studio: MenuMaker

by Kevin Siegel

After producing your Camtasia projects, the net result is a collection of independent web files, scripts, videos and other assets. If you are looking to group multiple Camtasia projects together to create a single course, you'll need to upload the lessons to Screencast.com, YouTube, or a Learning Management System. But if you want to create a website that includes a menu of your lessons, you will need to get a webmaster involved… someone who can create a website that links to all of the produced files that make up your course.

If you don't have access to a webmaster, Camtasia MenuMaker will prove invaluable. MenuMaker packages documents, graphics, multimedia files and videos all into a single menu intended to be placed onto a CD-ROM, DVD or other type of drive.

Before creating a menu, produce two or more Camtasia projects as videos.

To create a menu, open a Camtasia project and choose Tools > Studio tools > Camtasia MenuMaker. From within the MenuMaker Wizard, select Create a new project using the Wizard and click the OK button.

Camtasia: Welcome Screen

Next you can choose a Template for your menu. After selecting a Template, click Next.

Camtasia: Templates

Find and open your produced videos (in the image below, I've added three videos to my menu).

Camtasia: Videos added to the menu.

On the final screen, give your menu a title and click Finish to create the menu.

Camtasia: A title added to the menu.

And that's it! Of course, if you want to control the look of the menu, there are plenty of things you can do to customize it… but that's a story for next week.

Camtasia: Menu prior to customization.

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If you'd like to learn more about eLearning, come hang out in my next eLearning basics mini course. And if you'd like to learn more Captivate, Presenter, or Storyline, we've got a great collection of live, online classes for you.

March 3, 2015

Camtasia Studio: Animations Made Easy

by Kevin Siegel

When I teach Camtasia, one of the activities that garners the largest "that's cool" factor is how easy it is to animate any object. During class, we not only animate an object, we get it to grow and rotate while it's flying around the screen. Sound awesome? Here's how to do it:

Insert an object onto the Camtasia stage (you can animate anything… in the image below I've added a rectangle callout, added a bit of text and positioned it in the middle of the stage).

Camtasia Studio: A callout added to the stage.

Extend the playtime for the object so it sticks around for a bit (right-click the object on the Timeline and choose Duration). In the image below, I have extended the duration for my callout to 20 seconds.

Camtasia Studio: Duration extension.

Now for the fun part, to animate the object, position the playhead as far left on the Timeline as it will go.

Ensure the object you want to animate is selected and choose Tools > Visual Properties. On the Visual Properties panel, click the Add animation button.

Camtasia Studio: Add Animation button

On the Timeline, the selected object now sports a blue circle. The blue circle is an animation's starting point.

On the Stage, drag the object left to remove it temporarily from the stage.

Camtasia Studio: Object off of the stage.

On the Timeline, position the Playhead 5 or 10 seconds to the right of the first blue circle.

Camtasia Studio: Playhead positioned right.

On the Stage, ensure that the object is still selected and click the Add animation button on the Visual Properties panel to add a second blue circle to the Timeline.

Camtasia Studio: Second animation added.

On the Stage, drag the object to the middle of the Stage.

In the images below, I've added a third animation (and then, on the Stage, I dragged my object to a third position… and I resized and rotated it to boot… if you're following along, you can add as many or few animations to the Timeline as you like).

Camtasia Studio: Final animation added.

To test the animation, rewind the video and then click the Play button on the Video Preview playbar.

Go ahead, say it… that's pretty cool! If you'd like to see a video demonstration of adding animations to a Camtasia project, check out the IconLogic YouTube channel.

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If you'd like to learn more about eLearning, come hang out in my next eLearning basics mini course. And if you'd like to learn about Camtasia, Captivate, Presenter, or Storyline, we've got a great collection of live, online classes for you.

September 11, 2014

Fundamentals of Designing and Developing Cost-Effective eLearning

When: September 22-25
Where: McCormick Place, Chicago (Part of the Online Learning Conference Certification program)

There are multiple tools available that will let you create compelling eLearning content including Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, TechSmith Camtasia Studio, and Adobe Presenter. But which tool is the best, most affordable option for your needs?

Once you select your eLearning tool, what's next? How do you get started creating your first eLearning content? Once you start, how long is it going to take you to finish? What's the real cost for your effort? Are there hidden costs? How will you be able to measure the effectiveness of your eLearning?

Join IconLogic's Kevin Siegel for an intense, tool-agnostic, hands-on workshop where you'll get a jump start on building your first eLearning course.

Among other things, you'll learn:

Strategies for building effective eLearning
The eLearning development process
How to create an eLearning script and/or storyboard
How to get started on creating eLearning content using Captivate, Storyline, Camtasia or Presenter

More information.

September 3, 2014

eLearning: Adobe Captivate and Microsoft PowerPoint

by Kevin Siegel

What came first, the chicken or the egg? Wait… before answering that, let's rework that classic question with this: what comes first, the eLearning or the PowerPoint presentation?

When developing eLearning, the content is often created in Microsoft PowerPoint first. I'm not going to get into what it takes to create visually compelling PowerPoint presentations (we have a mini course for that). Instead, I'm going to show you how to take existing PowerPoint content and quickly re-purpose it for eLearning.

Earlier this year I wrote an article teaching you how to take PowerPoint content and create eLearning using either TechSmith Camtasia Studio or Adobe Presenter. Over the next two weeks, I'm going to show you how to use your PowerPoint content in Adobe Captivate and Articulate Storyline.

Adobe Captivate and PowerPoint

You can import PowerPoint slides into an existing Captivate project or create a new project that uses the PowerPoint slides. During the import process, Captivate includes the ability to create a link between a Captivate project and PowerPoint presentation. Using this workflow, any changes made to the original PowerPoint presentation can be reflected in the Captivate project.

Note: Microsoft PowerPoint must be installed on your computer before you can import PowerPoint presentations into Captivate. Also, the ability to import PowerPoint presentations isn't new. In fact, Captivate has supported PowerPoint imports for years. If you're using a legacy version of Captivate (even version 4 and 5), the steps below will work for you just fine.

To create a new project from a PowerPoint presentation, choose File > New Project > Project From MS PowerPoint and open the PowerPoint presentation.

The Convert PowerPoint Presentations dialog box opens, offering a few controls over how the presentation is imported.

Adobe Captivate: Advanced Slide Options.

The On mouse click option adds a click box to each Captivate slide. The other available option, Automatically, results in Captivate slides that, when viewed by a learner, automatically move from slide to slide every three seconds. At the lower right of the dialog box, there are options for High Fidelity and Linked.

Adobe Captivate: High Fidelity and Linked options.

During a standard import process, PowerPoint pptx presentations are first converted to the ppt format and then converted to SWF. If you select High Fidelity, the import process takes native pptx files directly to Captivate SWF (the ppt conversion is skipped). This option, which is available only in Captivate for Windows, results in the best-looking content in Captivate, but it takes much longer to complete the import process.

The Linked option creates a link between the PowerPoint presentation and the new Captivate project. The link allows you to open the PowerPoint presentation from within Captivate. Additionally, any changes made externally to the PowerPoint presentation can be reflected in the Captivate project with a few mouse clicks.

After the PowerPoint slides are imported into Captivate, you can add Captivate objects such as captions, highlight boxes, or animations.

Adobe Captivate: Imported PowerPoint Presentation

If you need to edit the PowerPoint slides, choose Edit > Edit with Microsoft PowerPoint > Edit Presentation. The Presentation will open in a window that can best be described as a union between Captivate and PowerPoint. If you've used PowerPoint before, you will recognize the familiar PowerPoint interface.

There are two buttons you wouldn't normally see if you opened the presentation directly in PowerPoint: the Save and Cancel buttons at the upper left of the window. Once you have edited the PowerPoint slides, click the Save button and the changes will appear in the Captivate project.

If the PowerPoint presentation has been edited outside of Captivate, (perhaps your subject matter expert is adding or removing content from the presentation) you can still get the changes. Choose Window > Library. On the Library, notice that there is a Status column.

A red button will indicate that the PowerPoint slides within the Captivate project are no longer synchronized with the PowerPoint presentation. A simple click on the red button will update the Captivate slides.

Adobe Captivate: Not in synch with source.

Next week: Articulate Storyline and PowerPoint.

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Looking for instructor-led training on Adobe Captivate? Check out our live, online, instructor-led Captivate classes.