Loading own call out image in Camtasia 8

Hi. I am probably being really stupid here, but I can't see an option to load my own callout images in Camtasia 8.

I mostly use call outs for the fade in/fade out functionality, which gives everything a far smoother look.

Many thanks in advance for your help.

James McLuckie

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Posted 7 years ago

7 years ago

Kevin Mojek, Employee

584 Posts
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You can import images via the clip bin and add anywhere on the timeline. Double-clicking an image on the timeline will open it in the callouts tab.

For images, the fade controls in the callouts tab will be disabled, But you can get the same effect by adding Fade transitions to the start or end of the callout. Or you can use any of the other transitions. Here's a quick example: http://screencast.com/t/V8ozXAggZWyR

Hope this helps.

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2012-12-20T04:46:28+00:00

Steve Smith

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Why are fades disabled for image callouts, when they were there by default in previous versions of CS?

2012-12-22T02:29:28+00:00

Grant Swaim

4 Posts
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I had the same question. And where is the simple to use "Add as a call out" that was in the contextual menu of Camtasia 7. It allowed you to add images as a true call out that had fade in and fade out controls.

7 years ago

James McLuckie

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It does indeed, Kevin. Thank you very much.

I wonder if there is any way to control the duration of the fades other than dragging them. I am trying to set my fades to .5 seconds, the duration keeps jumping from.29 to 1.00 when I try dragging the fade elements (even when I have the workstation set to the largest possible view).

Thanks again for your help.

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7 years ago

Kevin Mojek, Employee

584 Posts
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You can set a default duration here: http://screencast.com/t/CKYOUYCZ . One thing that may not be obvious is that the duration is shown in terms of seconds followed by 30-fps frames. So .5 seconds would show as 00;15. For now, dragging is the only way to set the duration. In earlier releases, we had a context menu that would bring up a little dialog to set the duration. Some users have reported back to us that they preferred using the dialog, so we may bring that back at some point, probably in a maintenance release.

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7 years ago

James McLuckie

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Great, Kevin. Thank you.

Yes, I would vote for the return of the dialogue box. But thanks again for all your help today.

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7 years ago

hatteras donor

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seems more convoluted and less intuitive than before, I had to come here to see how was it done and still Im not sure

why the change?

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2012-06-26T04:57:34+00:00

Kevin Mojek, Employee

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One difference between CS 8 and earlier releases is that callouts are no longer on dedicated callout tracks and tied to a single Video 1 clip. Images are more generic; you might simply use an image full-frame at project dimensions, or you might shrink it down to be used as a callout, add some text, maybe even some transition-in or transition-out behavior or animations. So the intent was that adding to the timeline and transitions-in and transitions-out should be more generic too; there should be one way to do it and consistent between video and image media.

Having said that though, it is admittedly more effort with CS 8 to use images compared to the standard, built-in callouts. A lot of things changed with CS 8, which lead to a lot of design decisions and we may have have missed on a few of these. Which part seems more convoluted? Not having the 'image callout' option in the callouts tab, the different way of setting fades, or both?

2012-06-26T08:50:29+00:00

hatteras donor

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yes explained like that makes sense, but only now, that thanks to your comment, I got a better idea how to go about it, but like I said given previous versions of camtasia you're used to adding images mostly as callouts, and its quite easy if you had the option right there everytime you created a new callout. Perhaps in this new version would look a bit redundant but I still think would benefit mroe people than harm.

then again my brain is very germanic, perhaps others find it better as it is now.

2012-12-20T04:43:32+00:00

Steve Smith

7 Posts
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+1; suffering from 'who moved my cheese' a lot when using CS 8 versus 5,6,7.

7 years ago

Kevin Mojek, Employee

584 Posts
121 Reply Likes

Starting with the 8.0.3 maintenance release (back in October), the dialog box is back. It's smaller and pops up right on the timeline now, so hopefully it's a bit less intrusive: http://screencast.com/t/QJDAWFFWud

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4 years ago

Paul Naude

7 Posts
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Is there no way to add your own shapes to the Callouts library (to enable adding text, change colours etc.? Normally this is just a simple black and white vector image one can easily create using Inkscape. Maybe a special folder you simply need to add it perhaps?