11:45Greg Edits Video · Tutorial
The ULTIMATE Time-Saving Editing Hack
How keyboard macros — built with a free no-code plugin — eliminate repetitive clicks in DaVinci Resolve for editors on any platform.
April 22ndThe argument in one line.
Flat screen recordings lose viewers because nothing breaks the visual monotony — six layered techniques in DaVinci Resolve transform a boring capture into a structured, visually dynamic tutorial.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You edit tutorial or software walkthrough videos and your screen recordings feel flat or hard to follow.
- You use DaVinci Resolve and want practical, copy-paste techniques rather than theory.
- You need to redact PII (email addresses, names) from screen recordings before publishing.
- You want to add picture-in-picture or zoom effects without deep Fusion page knowledge.
SKIP IF…
- You edit exclusively in Premiere Pro or Final Cut — most techniques are Resolve-specific.
- Your screen recordings are short cutaways that need no more than a crop or cut.
The full version, fast.
Screen recordings fail when they sit on screen too long without visual variety. The fix is layering six techniques in order: text slates to break chapters, picture-in-picture to keep the presenter visible, smooth zooms to aid legibility on mobile, area highlighting to focus attention, blur/color-block redaction for privacy, and optional 3D tilt for visual punch. Each technique has a manual Fusion workflow and a faster preset shortcut. The channel offers a free zoom preset and a paid essentials pack that covers most of the advanced effects.
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00:00 – 00:33
01 · The problem
Frames the two failure modes: too many effects vs. flat unbroken recordings.
00:33 – 02:16
02 · Split into chapters with text slates
Use labeled text slates to divide screen recordings into sections, giving viewers visual resets and signaling new information.
02:16 – 04:16
03 · Picture-in-picture
Keep the presenter visible over the screen recording using Resolve's native PiP (v21+) or the Animated Mask preset for animated reveal/hide.
04:16 – 06:22
04 · Zoom properly
Smooth, purposeful zoom-ins aid mobile viewers; Zoom Camera LITE preset removes keyframe fiddling.
06:22 – 10:06
05 · Highlight areas
Mask a UI region, darken/blur background, optionally pop the area out. Manual Fusion workflow or Blur and Tint preset.
10:06 – 12:39
06 · Hide unwanted parts
Blur node + rectangle mask redacts emails; color generator node removes lines. Blur and Tint preset handles both cases.
12:39 – 14:41
07 · 3D camera effect
Transform + DVE nodes in Fusion create a perspective tilt; use sparingly. Paid preset simplifies A-to-B animation.
14:41 – 15:10
08 · Arrows and on-screen elements
PNG arrows and circles with lowered opacity direct viewer attention to specific UI areas.
15:10 – 15:37
09 · How it comes together
Outro pointing to a subscriber video re-edit showing all techniques in practice.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- The two failure modes for screen recordings are identical in effect: too many effects disorient, too few bore — both lose the viewer.
- Text slates serve double duty: they break visual monotony AND signal to the viewer that a new topic is starting.
- Zooming into a UI area is not about aesthetics — it is about what your viewer sees on a phone where small buttons are invisible.
- Stay on a zoomed frame for at least a few seconds after arriving or the cut defeats the purpose of zooming in.
- DaVinci Resolve 21 added a native picture-in-picture effect, but it has no animation — you need a preset or keyframes to get a smooth reveal.
- The blur + rectangle mask technique on the Fusion page is the cleanest way to redact PII from screen recordings without third-party tools.
- A color generator node set to white is more visually reliable for removing UI elements than blurring them — it produces a clean plate, not a smear.
- 3D camera or DVE tilt effects should be used for under 2 seconds at a time; anything longer makes a learning video harder to follow.
- PNG arrows and circles with lowered opacity cost zero production time and consistently outperform complex motion graphics at directing viewer attention.
- Preset packs pay off specifically in screen recording workflows because the same mask-darken-blur-pop sequence repeats every few minutes of content.
Six techniques that make screen recordings worth watching.
WHAT TO LEARN
Viewer attention during screen recordings depends on breaking visual monotony at every level — chapter, composition, zoom, focus, and framing.
- Text slates do two jobs at once: they give the viewer a visual rest and tell them a new topic is starting, reducing the sense of one unbroken slog.
- Adding a presenter overlay (picture-in-picture) gives viewers a face to track, which alone increases engagement compared to a headless screen capture.
- A zoom into a UI region is primarily an accessibility move, not a style choice — your viewer on a phone cannot see a small button at full-frame.
- Staying on a zoomed frame for at least a few seconds after arriving is what makes the zoom useful; cutting back immediately wastes the move.
- Masking and darkening the background to pop out a UI region focuses attention more reliably than zooming because the context frame stays visible.
- The cleanest way to redact PII from a screen recording is a color generator node set to white — it produces a plate, not a blur smear.
- 3D tilt or depth-of-field effects have a 1-2 second window before they stop helping the viewer and start obstructing the content.
- PNG overlays (arrows, circles, low opacity) are the highest effort-to-payoff ratio tool in the screen recording toolkit — simple and consistently effective.
Terms worth knowing.
- Text slate
- A full-screen or overlaid graphic card displaying a chapter title or callout phrase, used to break a long screen recording into labeled sections.
- Picture-in-picture (PiP)
- A compositing technique where one video (typically the presenter) is scaled down and placed in a corner over another video (typically the screen recording).
- Animated mask
- A shape-based mask with keyframed in/out transitions, used here to reveal or hide a picture-in-picture window smoothly rather than cutting hard.
- Fusion page
- DaVinci Resolve's node-based compositing environment, accessible from the edit page via right-click, used for effects not available on the edit timeline directly.
- DVE node
- Digital Video Effects node in Fusion; provides 3D perspective/rotation transforms that simulate a camera tilt or off-axis view of a clip.
- Color generator node
- A Fusion node that produces a solid-color rectangle, used here as a clean overlay to block out unwanted UI text or elements from a screen recording.
- Cross dissolve
- A standard fade transition between two clips; used in this video to animate the highlight effect fading in and out around a masked screen region.
Things they pointed at.
Lines you could clip.
00:00
“Most editors either do too much or too little with screen recordings in their videos.”
06:23
“Zooming in isn't always the answer.”
12:39
“This should only be used sparingly and for short periods of time.”
Word for word.
Read-along
Don't just watch it. Burn it in.
See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.
metaphoranalogystory
00:00Most editors either do too much or too little with screen recordings in their videos. If it's too much, then it becomes a confusing mess. And if it's too little, then it's just incredibly boring to watch.
00:14So, in this video, I'll show you how to turn a flat screen recording into something that looks professional, is easy to follow, and actually keeps people watching. And I'll also show you something that editors do that makes any screen recording look a hund times more interesting.
00:32So here's the first thing you need to do and it's really quick and simple. So the main problem with screen recordings in videos is that they can become really boring to watch if they're on screen for too long. So you want to stop the viewers's attention drifting off by clearly splitting it up into different sections or different chapters if you like.
00:54So they know that each section is a new piece of information rather than just one long slog. And to do this you can use text slates. So for example, you might be editing a video about how to create and use a Gmail account.
01:09You'd have a text slate saying something like number one creating an account. And then the screen recording would go through that process.
01:17And then you would cut away to another text slate saying number two, the home screen. And then it shows the basics of the home screen. And then you might cut away again and it says number three, how to send an email.
01:28And so on. It just breaks things up and gives the viewer so they know that a new piece of information is coming. And text slates like this don't just have to be for chapters.
01:39They can be used for emphasizing things as well. So, if you say something in the video like this is the gold standard for sending emails, then you might have a text pop up on screen saying gold standard for sending emails like I did just there.
01:51It just emphasizes what you're saying, which gets the viewer to pay extra attention to what's being said. And it's just another way to cut away from having to look at the same thing for too long. And of course, if you're editing a video with someone presenting to the camera, then you can of course cut back to them full screen like I just did there.
02:09If they're not specifically talking about something on screen, anything that can break things up a bit will really help keep the viewers's attention. And another thing you can do if you have someone talking to the camera is you can have them on screen on top of the screen recording or even next to it.
02:25It's called a picturein picture effect. And if you're on Da Vinci Resolve version 21 or above, then you'll see that Resolve actually added its own picturein picture effect on the edit page. So if you open up the effects browser and come down to Resolve FX and then you can find it here and drag and drop it onto your footage like this.
02:43And it will place your clip in the bottom right corner like this. And you can change the corner radius, change the size, add a border, and it just gives the viewer something else to look at if the screen recording's on screen for a while, which just helps to keep their attention. This native picturein picture effect doesn't animate in or out, though.
03:02So, I built a preset that has that option. It's called animated mask, and it's essentially a mask that you can animate from value A to value B, and it's perfect for using screen recordings, and as a picturein picture effect. So, if you come over to the extras tab, you can come down to picturein picture options and pick a corner you want the picture and picture to be in.
03:21So, I'll hit bottom right and it just pops up in the bottom right like that. And then you can add a drop shadow, add a corner radius, add a border, and you can have it either static like this or you can come to the timing tab and hit animate in. And then it will animate in smoothly like this.
03:38And you can also have it animate out as well when you're done. And something else that you can do with effects like this is you can pop the A-roll in the bottom corner like this, but also pop the screen recording in a mask as well and have them both on top of a branded colored background. I use this effect a lot in Ed's videos and have them overlapping each other like this.
03:57And you can do the same if you're wanting to show a screenshot as well. You can frame it like this and keep your A-roll on screen so it's more engaging for the viewer. You could also frame it like this.
04:07So you can have text popping up on the side as well or even above or below like this. There's so many different ways that you can use tools like this to frame your videos. The next thing is something that I've seen so many people overdo on YouTube.
04:20Have you ever been watching a video where they'll zoom in to a part of the screen and then suddenly zoom to the next part and then the next part and then again and again and you're struggling to keep up with what you're actually looking at. Well, that's what not to do. But equally, it doesn't mean you should just keep it static either because that could have the opposite effect.
04:40So, it is good to have nice smooth zoomins to your screen recordings when you're showing something in a specific area because while it might look clear on your screen, your viewer might be watching it on their phone and the little button that you're talking about might be absolutely tiny on their end. So, a little zoom into that area of the screen just makes it a bit easier for your audience and stops them from having to lean into their screen to see what's going on.
05:03The main thing to remember with this though is to only really use it if it's making things easier for the viewer and try and stay on that frame for at least a few seconds after zooming rather than zoom in and then instantly back out again. Otherwise, it can make it even harder for the viewer to see what you're doing.
05:20You can zoom into your screen recordings using the key frames in the inspector up here. So, you can click on these diamonds on the zoom and the position controls to set the start of the animation. And then you can move your playhead along and set the end of the animation like this.
05:35So it will then animate from here to here. But key frames can get really fiddly when you have to go into the key frame editor and start adjusting the handles just to try and make them look smooth. So if you want to avoid that, then you can download a free preset I made called zoom camera light.
05:51The link's in the description below if you want to get it. So with this you can set your A controls which is the start of the animation and then set your B controls which is the end of the animation. And then it will animate from A to B just like this.
06:04And it already looks nice and smooth. And you can of course adjust the easing of the animation how you like and set the length to however many seconds you like as well. So you're not having to work out how long things are with the key frames or anything like that.
06:19So if you like the look of that then get it for free in the description below. Now, zooming in isn't always the answer.
06:26Sometimes it's better to either highlight an area by fading the rest of the image down, or even better, pop out an area of the screen like this to focus the viewer's attention. So, instead of looking at a full screen, the viewer is just looking at this one section without any other distractions. Now, there's a few ways to do this.
06:44So, I'll show you how you can set it up the manual way, and then I'll show you a tool that's much quicker to use. So to set this up manually, you can select your clip and hold down the option key and then left click on it and drag it up to make a copy of that clip on the track above.
06:59Then right click on the top clip and hit open in Fusion page. Don't worry, this isn't going to go deep on the Fusion page. The only thing you have to do here is select the clip, which is this node here, and then hit this button here, which is going to add a mask to the clip.
07:14Then if you click on these three dots here, make sure show controls is ticked. This means that when you click on the rectangle node, you'll be able to use the oncreen controls to place the mask around the area that you want to focus on. Once you've done that, come back to the edit page.
07:30If I disable this bottom clip, then you'll see that the top clip is just this masked out section here, and the bottom clip is just a normal clip. Now, we want the bottom clip to be darker than the top clip, so the masked out section sticks out. So to do this, we can open the effects tab, come down to resolve effects, and then find color generator.
07:50So if we add this to our clip, set the color to black, and then use the blend slider to set it to a level that we like. And then we can scroll up and add a gorian blur to give a bit of blur to the background.
08:02So the viewer's attention is focused even more on the area that we want. And then to have this fade in, all we need to do is make a cut around the point where we want the fade to happen. and then delete the effect from this first clip. So you can see it's now going from normal to faded like this.
08:19And then just add a cross dissolve transition here. So it fades from normal to faded and blurred. And then to fade it back in again, we just make a cut over here, delete the effects on the end clip, and add the cross dissolve transition again.
08:32So now it fades in over here and then back out over here. And if you want to make this area pop out of the screen to make it even more visible, then you can set a key frame to the zoom and position controls on the top clip at the start of the transition over here. And then move the playhead to the end of the transition and adjust the zoom and position controls again.
08:52And then it will animate up like this. But obviously, this does take up a bit of time and can be quite fiddly, which is why I built a preset to save all of that time.
09:01It's called blur and tint. And you can just add it to your clip. Hit enable mask.
09:06Use the fusion overlay viewer to place the mask where you want. And that will do that initial animation where it fades in. And then if you want to pop it out, you can just hit enable pop out.
09:16And then adjust the size and the position like this. And that's it. It'll animate in nice and smoothly like this.
09:23And you can adjust the timing and the easing however you like as well. And if you want to animate it back out again, then you can just cut your clip around the middle, change the second one to animate out, and then it will animate back out like this. Another thing you can do here as well is you could add some text on the left here to emphasize what's being said like this.
09:42So like here, I've got a list animating on to just reaffirm what I'm saying, which is just making the information easier to digest for the viewer. It just makes the whole process so much quicker and easier.
09:53And that preset is part of my preset pack which is in the description below. So if you're interested in a bunch of time-saving presets like that one and the animated mask preset, then have a look at my website and see what you think. So something that you'll almost certainly run into as an editor is being handed a screen recording and being asked to blur something out or remove something from it entirely.
10:15So say you've got to show an email like this. They might ask you to blur out the email address or remove a line like this.
10:22And this is something that's easy to do on the Fusion page. So if you right click on your clip and hit open in Fusion page, all you need to do is leftclick on this first node and then come up to this icon here, which is the blur, and then left click on this. This then adds it in between your clip and the media out node.
10:41Meaning the blur is now applied to the whole clip. Then you can simply click on your blur node and then leftclick on this icon here, which is the rectangle node. So, this is going to mask where the blur is affecting.
10:53So, if you come up to these three dots here and make sure show controls is ticked, then click on the mask node and you can use the onscreen controls to place the mask over the area that you want to blur like this. And now that email address has been blurred out. And then if you want to remove this line at the bottom, then you can click on the blur node and then come over to this icon here to add a background node, which is essentially a full screen block of color like this.
11:19So you can see it's added this background node and also this merge node. So what's happening is this background block of color is merging on top of our image. And then if we select the background node and then add another mask like this again, we can then place this mask over the area that we want to remove and then change the color of the background to white.
11:40And now it's gone. So that's a nice and easy way to remove things like that in your screen recordings or your screenshots. And you can also use this technique to remove a bunch of clutter as well, which also makes it easier for your viewer to focus on what they need to.
11:55If you have my preset pack, then you can do the same thing with the blur and tint preset I showed you earlier. So, if you wanted to blur a section, you would just hit disable tint, then click on enable mask, then invert mask, and then use the Fusion overlay viewer to place that blur over the area that you want.
12:11And then just set it to no animation. So, it's like that for the whole clip. And then you could also add another one on top of that.
12:19Hit disable blur, set the tint strength to one, change the color to white, enable the mask, then invert it, and place it over the area that you want to remove. It's really handy to know how to do this. And blocking things out with a solid color just keeps things nice and clean.
12:34The last technique is a shorefire way to make your screen recordings look way more pleasing to the eye. So once you've split your screen recording up into different sections by cutting away to text slates, you've added a talking head into the corner, you're zooming into the screen and highlighting bits when necessary, and you're hiding parts of the image that aren't needed, you can then think about where you want to take it up a notch and add a 3D effect to it like this.
13:00Now, I will say that this should only be used sparingly and for short periods of time because if someone's trying to learn something about a piece of software and the screen's constantly looking like this, then it probably does more harm than good. But if you're just cutting away to a small screen recording and want things to look interesting, then it's a really nice touch.
13:21Now, again, there's a couple of ways to do this. If you don't mind not having the depth of field blur, then the easiest way would be to open your clip up on the Fusion page, select the first node, hit shift space to bring up the search effects bar, type in transform and hit enter to add that node. And then hit shift space again, type in DVE and hit enter to add that node.
13:42Then you can use the size control on the transform node to zoom in and out. and then the center and rotation controls on the DVE node to create the 3D effect, which looks like this. Another way that a lot of people do it is by setting up a 3D camera system in Fusion that looks like this. I won't go into detail on how to set this up because this could be a whole tutorial on its own.
14:04So, I'd recommend searching something like how to create 3D camera effects in Dinci Resolve on YouTube and you'll see that there's a bunch of really good tutorials showing you how to set that up. It is a bit fiddly and does require you to be a little bit comfortable on the fusion page, but it can give you some really nice results.
14:21And if you have my preset pack, then you can use my own 3D camera that I built for the edit page where you can set your A controls and then set your B controls and it'll animate from A to B and looks really nice and smooth like this. Just note that the depth of field blur on my 3D camera is only available on the paid version of Resolve.
14:41And one more thing you can do to draw the viewer's eye to the exact spot on the screen is to add onscreen elements like an arrow or a circle like this directly on top of the screen recording. So if you get a PNG of an arrow, then you could add that on top of your screen recording and have it pop in like this.
14:58And you can do the same with a circle. You could position your circle over here like this. Bring the opacity down a little bit and then just add a cross dissolve transition to fade it in and then fade it back out again.
15:10There's loads of different things like this that you can do to bring up the level of your videos. And if you're wondering how I would put all of these things into practice, then watch this video as I show exactly how I re-edited one of my subscribers videos. I show the exact techniques that I used in this video and I go deep into video pacing, color grading, audio editing, and how to edit a video precisely for the viewer.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The video opens by naming the two ways editors fail screen recordings before a single technique is shown — too much and you disorient, too little and you bore. That single contrast frame is why you keep watching.
Named ideas worth stealing.
00:00list
Screen Recording Layering Stack
- Chapter text slates
- Picture-in-picture overlay
- Purposeful zooms
- Area highlight/pop-out
- Redaction (blur/cover)
- 3D tilt effect (sparingly)
The order techniques are applied — each layer builds on the previous to add engagement without overcomplicating the edit.
Steal forAny software tutorial or course content where you have 5+ minutes of screen recording.
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
15:10next-video
“If you're wondering how I would put all of these things into practice, then watch this video as I show exactly how I re-edited one of my subscribers videos.”
Clean handoff to a companion video; no hard sell on the preset pack at the end, just an organic next-step.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
FROM THE DESCRIPTION
PRIMARY CTAWhere the creator wants you to go next.
Visual structure at a glance.
