Screen recording and video editing are essential tools if you're involved in producing tutorials or other educational materials. Camtasia, which is developed by TechSmith, has been around for many years and has progressed from being a simple screen capture tool into a handy video editor for Mac and Windows systems. I've used it to produce a couple of short videos over the last week. Here's what I found.

So you shot some footage for your indie film, but it doesn’t quite look like the stuff you see on the big screen. These simple video editing tricks will help make your footage look a lot more like the stuff the pros shoot.

Adobe has been one of the "go to" providers of software for creative professionals for a long time. But they've struggled to convert that into market success with consumers. And now that we live in a time when shooting and uploading video is commonplace, they're doing their best to enter that market. Project Rush is all about shooting, editing and uploading video as quickly as possible.

Many of us view animation as a field reserved for creative, code-savvy gurus. And, while this demographic certainly thrives there, that's not to say the rest of us are barred from creating gripping visual content.

Animatron Studio Pro offers users the means to create engaging animations and graphics, even if you have zero design or coding experience. And, for a limited time, lifetime subscriptions are on sale for over 90 per cent off.

Using an increasingly sophisticated method for making fake videos, or "deepfakes," video editors can realistically face-swap someone into a video. (As our sister site Gizmodo reports, the technology has been especially popular for making fake celebrity porn.) Deepfakes will soon make it hard to tell when a video of a famous figure is real. To demonstrate, BuzzFeed and director Jordan Peele created a "deepfake" of Barack Obama saying things like "President Trump is a total and complete dipshit."

The technique of using a green screen (or another single colour - blue is sometimes used as well) to divide a background in video shoots so you can later insert any other background is widely used today. Pretty much anyone with the right software and a little bit of skill can add any background to an image or movie shot in front of a green screen.

But Google has taken things a step further. The company says it's bringing "precise, real-time, on-device mobile video segmentation to the YouTube app".

Video editing is tough. Editing photography is tough. It's processor intensive, time intensive and resource intensive and if you're working to tight deadlines across multiple different projects sometimes one laptop or one desktop isn't enough. Working on two screens is a given, but often you'll find yourself working across two different computers.

How can you handle that in a time effective manner?

Might we suggest using a KVM sharing switch?

Avid is well known to those involved in video editing. It's the preferred tool of many in Hollywood and has been used to edit many of the biggest movies made. While pro level tools aren't very cheap, Avid is providing a new gateway to those looking to boost their video-editing power. Media Composer | First is an application that brings powerful video editing capability to everyone for the grand price of free.

GoPro has a shiny new editing app that promises to take the hard work out of turning your adventures into a ready-to-share video - automatically.

We got hands on with QuikStories to see if it really is that simple.

My chill-out music of choice is, weirdly enough, incredibly long YouTube videos. I like to nap to the low hum of Star Trek's USS Enterprise, or a 12-hour recording of a box fan.

It was once the case that if you wanted to do serious video editing, your choices were limited. Outside of expensive commercial options from the likes of Sony and Adobe, you'd have to make do with Windows Movie Maker... or worse. These days, free options abound. The hardest part is actually picking one.

iOS: Apple Clips, Apple's newest app, is an attempt at making a video editing app that works something like Snapchat or Instagram, without the social component. The end result is a bit baffling to use, though it does show some promise.

Video: You've probably seen those fun time lapse videos that make subjects look miniature, like toys or models surrounded by a realistic looking environment. This style requires a tilt shift lens, but this tutorial shows you how to create the effect without one.

When it comes to photo-editing software, Adobe leads the pack. So, whether you’re pursuing a career in design or just looking to pick up a new skill, the Adobe Super Bundle is the perfect way to start.

The GoPro is many people's favourite action camera, and it's easy to understand why. It's versatile, powerful and sturdy. However, you'll probably get over the novelty of taking it on a bike ride or an underwater snorkelling session fairly quickly. Don't waste that money -- there are plenty of other creative ways to get even more out of your GoPro.

Android: Your phone does the best it can to figure out which way a video should be rotated, but sometimes it messes up. A long time ago, Google's photos app had the ability to manually rotate an image. Now, the feature is back.

Android: There are very few video editors for Android. That makes GoPro Quik (formerly Replay) a welcome addition. It has a selection of styles you can choose from for automatic editing, or you can edit shots manually.

We love all the little things you can do with QuickTime, but The Sweet Setup points to one I've never noticed before: the ability to stitch a bunch of videos into one simple timeline.

I'm looking at buying some video editing software (budget up to $500) and was wondering what would be the best software to spend my money on? I have PC and just need basic editing (although I may need to do more later). At a minimum, I'll need to chapterise, cut clips, merge files and change formats (mainly to mp4, wmv, avi). I'm a bit overwhelmed with all the choices out there so please help!