TechSmith, the company behind some of the technical writing community’s go-to screen recording and video editing tools, have released new versions of Camtasia and Snagit.
And lucky old us, they gave us early access as, apparently, we’re influencers now. So, we’ve put them through their paces.
Plus, in this post, we’ll take a look at Audiate for the first time.
Here’s our take on the updates, the new features, and the big change: the subscription model.
Camtasia: Our long-time training video companion
We’ve been Camtasia users for years. It’s our main tool for creating training videos, and honestly, it’s great. The beauty of Camtasia is its simplicity. It’s clean, intuitive, and easy to pick up, but it also packs a surprising punch when you need more advanced features, like adding LUTs for colour-grading (though, admittedly, finding it in the menus can be a bit of a treasure hunt).
Here’s an example of a video edited and generated in Camtasia with a LUT applied:
But enough about the old stuff, let’s get to what’s new:
New Camtasia features we’re excited about
AI background sound removal
This is a game-changer for us. We recently used it during a podcast recording. We let a fan heater run when we’d normally turn it off. Previously, we’d resort to Audacity for cleaning up, but this AI feature saved a lot of time.
Live camera preview
Ever accidentally recorded a 20-minute presentation with a dead camera? We have. More than once.
The new live camera preview will be another a lifesaver. It will help us catch technical issues before they become frustrating moments.
Plus, it’s great for spotting stray microphone cables, pocket detritus, or other background distractions before we hit record.
More title, captioning, and subtitling options
These are very effective for creating those short, punchy videos that are perfect for YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Instagram. TechSmith are clearly trying to cater for the explosion in short form video.
Other new Camtasia features
New cursor movements
While less relevant to our specific workflow, we can see how these would be useful for other types of tutorials and demonstrations.
Snagit: Beyond simple screenshots
For many in techcomm, Snagit is the go-to tool for screenshots.
It’s also a firm favourite for my wife, who is not in techcomm. She works in a bank, and raves about it. She uses it for highlighting issues in spreadsheets and creating quick “how-to” guides for those obscure, rarely-used applications that seem to live only in the financial world.
It’s still the tool of choice to enhance user documentation: capture, trim, blur, add boxes and arrows – all the screenshot essentials.
But Snagit has evolved. It’s now a simple video capture and editing tool and a step-by-step guide generator.
Snagit’s new tricks
- Create step-by-step guides: This could be useful for training documents
- Instantly redact sensitive info: This is handy for avoiding privacy and compliance issues.
- Background noise removal: The new feature in Camtasia also appears in Snagit.
- Virtual backgrounds in videos: The background blur seems to work better than Microsoft Team’s blur feature.
- Remove backgrounds (for headshots, etc.): It took a while to find it, but it’s under Image | Smart Move. In the image below, part of the background behind Nikolai Yezhov and Stalin has been removed.
Smart Redact: A closer look
We tested the Smart Redact feature on our accounting system’s screens. It did a good job of automatically redacting URLs, dates, and invoice numbers. However, it didn’t remove company names or amounts. It’s fast, but remember to double-check its work. To delete everything, Snagit’s auto simplify feature might be better.
Audiate: The AI audio editor
While there isn’t a new release of Audiate, it’s new to us, and we’re impressed. It’s available as part of a Camtasia bundle.
Think of it as your AI audio assistant:
- Pause and Hum Removal: A massive time-saver for cleaning up recordings. We used it on our recent podcast and it was a huge time saver.
- Transcription: Generate transcripts from recordings. We found it was more accurate than Microsoft Word’s transcription feature. Even if you don’t create training content, it could still be useful when you’re getting pre-release product walkthroughs from developers. You can record the demo, and get Audiate to generate a transcript that can help you create the user documentation.
- Script Generation: Using AI, it can create a script from a simple prompt.
- AI Avatars: We look forward to trying out this feature for quick demos or when clients want a video but don’t want to involve their own staff as presenters.
The elephant in the room: The new subscription model
TechSmith has moved to a subscription model. This is always a controversial move, and we know some people aren’t thrilled.
Update: Existing maintenance customers are unaffected. According to TechSmith:
As of 2025, all of our products have now moved to subscription service plans. But don’t worry – we’ll continue to honor your maintenance-based pricing until at least 2030, and you’ll have access to new versions of Camtasia while your subscription is active. Here’s a reminder of what that means for you:
– There is no additional cost to access future subscription versions as long as you continue to renew annually.
– If you do not renew your subscription, you will lose access to the subscription versions – as well as your maintenance-based pricing – when it expires.– You will always have access to previously purchased perpetual versions, and support will continue to be provided per our support policies.
I looked back at the costs and compared them to the new pricing model.
Original purchase costs (approximate):
- Camtasia: £250 (with 1yr maintenance)
- Snagit: £36 (with 1yr maintenance)
Previous maintenance costs:
- Camtasia: Annual maintenance £46/year
- Snagit: Annual maintenance £11/year
New subscription costs:
- Camtasia Essentials: £170/year
- Snagit: £37/year
The big question: Would we upgrade if we weren’t “influencers”?
Camtasia: YES.
It’s a great value for what it offers, and the new features (especially AI background removal and live camera preview) are genuinely useful for our workflow.
Snagit: PROBABLY. (and YES as we were on maintenance-based pricing)
The price jump is significant, albeit for a product that is still low cost, and we don’t use the video features (since we have Camtasia). However, the auto-redact feature is probably compelling enough to justify the cost for us.
Conclusion
TechSmith’s latest releases offer some really useful new features, particularly in the AI-powered department. While the subscription model might sting some users, the value proposition, especially for Camtasia, remains strong. Audiate also looks very powerful. As always, whether the upgrade is worth it depends on your individual needs and workflow. But, for us, these updates are a welcome addition to our content creation toolkit.
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