Camtasia 3

Record, edit and share the contents of your screen. $259.70 | TECHSMITH.COM

Camtasia enables you to record, edit and share your Mac’s display as a movie. It’s a popular tool with educators in particular, because they can show their audience how to fix a picture in Lightroom, for example.

Version 3 has a more polished look, though because the key panels are in the same relative positions to version 2, there’s no need to re-learn the app if you’re an old hand.

But while the basic cake may not look too different, there’s a lot more icing to work with here. The new Behaviors panel lets you drag and drop eye-catching animation presets onto assets such as text. The welcome Split button enables you to cut a timeline’s clip in two without having to rightclick on the playhead. And all music tracks included with Camtasia are royalty free, and fine to use on YouTube and Vimeo, which is super handy.

You can also now make your video productions more interactive by incorporating multiple-choice quizzes and even personalise your captured movies by adding the feed from your FaceTime camera as you record.

With Camtasia 3, a Mac user can now deliver the project to a non-Mac Camtasia user, who can then fine-tune it. This cross-platform compatibility will be welcomed by many professional Camtasia users.

The only significant issue we have with Camtasia 3 is the eye-watering price tag. That said, there is a free 30-day trial available, so you can try it out and establish whether the software is really worth the money you’ll have to dish out to fulfil your particular needs.

At the end of the day, though, this is a slick post-production application with the tools to make eye-catching videos, but with an equally eye-catching price that may turn potential users away.