We explored in a previous tutorial how straightforward it is to record anything on your Desktop using ScreenFlow. Unlike other applications of this type, ScreenFlow’s strength lies in the versatility of its editing tools once the recording has been made: You don’t need to use any other software to trim your recording or even add special visual effects to help the viewer focus on the important parts of the interface.

This application is incredibly versatile, and in this how-to we’ll show you how to turn your screencasts into very polished productions with effects like fades, cross-dissolves and animations. If you don’t already own ScreenFlow, you can download a free full-featured trial version to test out.

Difficulty level:
Medium

What you need:
>> ScreenFlow 1.2 or later ($99, www.flip4mac.com, free trial available)
>> 30 minutes of your time

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1. Cutting It

Use ScreenFlow to record some events on your Desktop (move folders around, open and switch between applications, and so on—see our first how-to for more on Screenflow’s basic recording features). Once you’re done, the editing interface launches and the footage you took is automatically placed in the Timeline, ready to be modified. Start by trimming the beginning to just before something interesting happens. To do that, click on the clip to select it (it gets highlighted in yellow), then drag the playhead to the desired place on the Timeline. Next, go to Edit > Trim Front To Scrubber (or use the keyboard shortcut W).

Step 1: Here's how to trim some unwanted footage from the beginning of your screencast. Click to embiggen!

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2. Fade Away

Rather than have the footage start immediately, making it gradually appear from a dark background would create a gentler introduction. With the footage still selected, go to the panel on the right and choose the Video tab (the first icon, top left of that section). Click the Add Video Action button. A yellow rectangle is added where the playhead had been located. Move the playhead to the start of that rectangle and change the Opacity slider located in the Video tab to 0% to create your first fade-from-black transition.

Step 2: Fade in for a more professional opening. Click to embiggen!

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3. Stretch It Out

Altering the length of the effect is very straightforward: Move the cursor to the end of the effect, and it turns into a resize tool. When that happens, click and drag the rectangle’s edge to either lengthen or shorten the effect. You can also choose to reposition it somewhere else on the clip by clicking and dragging it.

Step 3: Lengthening your fade-in effect is no problem. Click to embiggen!

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4. The Cutting-Room Floor

There might be a section in the middle of your footage that you’d rather not use, in order to speed up your screencast, for instance, or to remove a glitch. To do so, move the playhead to the beginning of the part you want to trim. Go to Edit > Split Clip (or use the Shift-Command-T keyboard shortcut). Move to the end of the unwanted clip, click on it to select it, and perform the same action. Hit the Delete key to remove the middle part from the Timeline.

Step 4: We're using Split Clip to isolate a portion of our screencast that we want to delete. Click to embiggen!

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5. Non-Destructive Editing

Should you change your mind, the deleted footage isn’t lost. To fill the gap, mouse over to the edit point present before or after the gap—the cursor turns into a resize tool. Drag it into the gap to stretch the remaining clip and reveal the previously cut footage. This also applies to the cut we performed in step 1.

Step 5: The "deleted" footage isn't really gone; you can recover it by dragging the next clip's edge back into the void. Click to embiggen!

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Next... Working with layers, animating special effects, cross-dissolves, and more!