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Advanced ScreenFlow Tutorial: Add special effects to your screencasts

Steve Paris — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 05:10:00 -0500

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!

6. Get on Top

Now that we have two clips in the Timeline, let’s work with multiple layers. Click on the second part and drag it straight down to place it on another layer. Then, drag it so that about a second of it overlaps the one above. Next, click on the first clip’s fade effect from step 2 to select it. Copy that effect (Edit > Copy or Command-C).

Step 6: By dragging our second clip down to a new layer, we can make them overlap to set the stage for a transition effect. Click to embiggen!

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7. Cloning Away

Move the playhead so that it is at the start of the second clip (the playhead should snap to the edit point as you near it; if it doesn’t, go to View > Snapping). Select both clips by clicking on one and Shift-clicking on the other. Then, paste the copied effect (Edit > Paste or Command-V) to add it to both clips at the same time.

Step 7: We're pasting our fade effect onto the end of the first clip and the beginning of the second one. Click to embiggen!

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8. Effect Alteration

With the playhead still in the same place, select the new top effect (make sure it’s the only selected item in the Timeline). Its Opacity slider should be at 100%. Select the bottom effect; set that Opacity to 0%. Move the playhead to the end of the top clip. Change the top effect’s Opacity to 0% and the bottom effect to 100%. You’ve just created a cross-dissolve.

Step 8: We're making a cool-looking cross-dissolve by fiddling with the Opacity slider. Click to embiggen!

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9. Step into 3D

Move the playhead to the right of the cross-dissolve. Select the last clip and use the keyboard shortcut Command-K to create a new Video Action. Use the panel on the right to change the Scale to 40-50% and the Y rotation to -45 degrees. Play back the effect and watch your Desktop shrink and rotate clockwise.

Step 9: This Video Action rescales and rotates the Desktop image in your screencast. Click to embiggen!

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10. Animate Anything

You can use actions to animate absolutely anything. For instance, move the cursor so that it’s a second or so after the rotation effect. Create a new Video Action. This time, tick the Reflection box and move the slider until it reaches 70%. Next, drag the new effect until it touches the previous one (actions cannot overlap each other). As you play the effect back, the reflection increases over time.

Step 10: Video Actions let you "animate" anything by changing it over time. Click to embiggen!

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11. In and Out

Deleting specific segments, like an action or an entire clip, is easy: Click it to highlight it and press the Delete key. However, things can get a little bit more complex when you’re working with multiple layers. If the section you want to remove spans multiple clips, the easiest and quickest way to delete it is by using In and Out points. Move the playhead to the start of the section you want to remove and press the I key (or go to Edit > Mark In Point). Everything to the right of that point turns blue. You can then move the playhead to another location inside that blue zone and hit the O key (or use Edit > Mark Out Point).

Step 11: Set the In and Out points if you want to cut a portion of your screencast that exists on two layers. Click to embiggen!

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12. Making Ripples as You Delete

Once the Out point has been set, dragging the blue zone’s edges alters the selected area’s dimensions, helping you be precise and only delete the section you want to get rid of. When ready, you must either use the Edit > Ripple Delete command or the Command-Delete keyboard shortcut to remove all the selected footage from the Timeline.

Step 12: Edit > Ripple Delete is the command you're looking for. Click to embiggen!

Create Screencasts Using ScreenFlow

Steve Paris — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:53:53 -0500

When trying to explain how a particular feature works on a Mac to someone who isn’t in the same room as you, sometimes only a video will do. A handful of applications exist to help you perform this task, but they've all been blown away by a newcomer, ScreenFlow.

With it, not only can you record actions on your screen, you can also capture video from your iSight camera, blending them together to create a unique, highly polished film, ready to be uploaded to the Internet—as long as your Mac is running Mac OS 10.5 Leopard.

There's a lot you can do with this application. We'll show you some of the basics to help you get started quickly, then follow up with some more advanced power-user tips later on. So download a trial copy and let's get started.

Difficulty: Medium

What You Need: ScreenFlow ($99.99, www.varasoftware.com, or get a demo version here), G4 or Intel Core 2 Duo Mac (Intel recommended), an iSight camera (optional), and about 30 minutes of time.

1. Installation Station

Move ScreenFlow from the Downloads folder to your Applications folder, or the software may not function properly (all commands in the menubar could be grayed out, for example). Once that’s done, launch it. You’re greeted with a simple semitransparent window that holds three options. The first two let you record video from your iSight camera (if you have one) and give you the ability to record external sound using your Mac’s built-in microphone or any other mic hooked up to it. Let’s keep these two off for now.

2. Oh, Driver?

Select Record Computer Audio. ScreenFlow will ask for permission to install a special audio driver that it needs for perform this function. Allow it to do so, and enter your administrator password when prompted.

3. And…Action!

Time to record! Click the big red button. After a countdown, ScreenFlow will begin recording your entire Desktop. Perform various actions like launching other apps, selecting commands from the menubar, using keyboard shortcuts, opening and navigating through folders, even use Fast User Switching to move to another account. ScreenFlow will record it all. When you’ve finished, press Shift-Command-2 to stop the recording.

4. Honey, I Shrunk the Screencast

Click to embiggen.

ScreenFlow will then open up its video-editing window. The first thing we need to do is reduce the Canvas area: By default, the Canvas matches your screen’s current resolution, which would be much too big for the Web. Also, you most likely only need to focus on a small section of the interface anyway, so cropping can help.

Click the Resize button located at the lower-left of the Preview section. Reduce the size until it’s somewhere within 640x480. Click Apply to set this change.

5. Tweak a Little More

Click to embiggen.

Clicking the Preview section selects your video clip. You can then drag it until you can see the section you wish to focus on. To the right are the Video Properties. Drag the Scale slider to the left to fit more of your Desktop image in the window.

6. “You Can Edit That Out, Right?”

Click to embiggen.

You might decide to edit out the first few seconds of your screencast, especially if they just show you getting ready. To do this, look at the Timeline section, at the bottom of the interface. On the far left is a red line with a triangular-shaped object above it. This is the playhead.

Click the red triangle and drag it to the right to move the playhead along. Place it just before the moment when something interesting happens. Next, move the cursor to the beginning of the video clip. It changes to a resize tool. Click on it and drag it to the right to trim that clip. As it nears the playhead, it will snap to it, facilitating the edit process.

7. Changing the Focus

Click to embiggen.

To focus on another area of the screen after a time, move the playhead to another point in time. Go to Actions > Add Video Action. A thin purple rectangle appears to the left of the playhead (you can resize it by dragging its edges; it turns yellow when selected). With the playhead set at the end of this action, move the clip in the Preview window or resize it to display another area. The longer the action, the slower the move will take.

8. Show Me the Mousing

Click to embiggen.

You can also make your mouse clicks visible. Move the playhead to a desired location. To the right of the interface are a series of tabs. Select the third one from the left, and click the button that reads Add Screen Recording Action.

Change the Click Effect pull-down menu to Radar. You can tell ScreenFlow to use a sound effect on each click, and even have any keys you pressed appear on screen —useful if you used any keyboard shortcuts.

9. Put a Face on It

Click to embiggen.

You can add an additional clip at any time, so we’ll record one using the iSight. Go to File > Add Additional Recording. Deselect the Record Desktop and Record Computer Audio options, and instead choose Record Video From Built-in iSight and Record Audio From Built-In Microphone. Click the Record button at the bottom-right of that window.

10. Talking Heads

Click to embiggen.

We’ll be recording a video voiceover to add to our demonstration, so play the existing footage back, making sure your Mac is mute. You will not see yourself as the recording happens, but the little green light next to your iSight will show that everything is working as it should. Stop the recording, and a new clip appears in the Media List on the right side of the interface.

11. All Together Now

Click to embiggen.

Drag that clip from the top right to the Timeline. As you do, a new video layer is created. Hold down the Shift key and click and drag one of the new clip’s corner handles to resize it in order to see both recordings at the same time, one on top of the other. Under the Video Properties tab (first on the left), you can even rotate your clip in 3D by changing the Y Rotation angle.

12. Export It

Click to embiggen.

To prepare your file for the web, go to File > Export. Change the Preset to Web - High (Best Quality). Since we already reduced our canvas’s size, click Scale To Custom Size—this will select the current canvas dimension. To make the movements across your screen look a little more realistic, you could select the Use Motion Blur option, but bear in mind that this will greatly lengthen your export process. When ready, click Export.