Replacing a Sloppy Mouse Cursor

Someone recently asked an interesting question on the forum: What’s the best practice for dealing with a sloppy mouse cursor on a screencast?

I have a terribly annoying habit of jiggling the mouse cursor on screen in a subconscious attempt to emphasize what I’m talking about. Luckily, in ScreenFlow, I have several options for dealing with this.

One option: I can re-record my screencast and focus on keeping my hands steady as a brain surgeon. Not a very appealing option, frankly.

Another option is to remove my cursor altogether in post production. This is easily done by un-checking the “Show Mouse Pointer” box on the “Screen Recording Properties” panel. That might be a good option, but if I’m showing a website that requires lots of clicks or navigation, I risk confusing my audience if I remove my cursor altogether.

Luckily, there’s a third option: replace the recorded cursor with an image of my choice, and add smooth movement to it with a video action.

A very helpful user, Michael Glasser (AKA Prescott Computer Guy), was kind enough to create a video showing exactly how he does this. As he says:

I use my own image as a cursor. This has a number of benefits:

1. Helps with branding
2. Helps users follow the cursor
3. If I want to “fake” where the cursor is, I can do so relatively easily – just stop showing the cursor and show the same image where the cursor “should” be.

See Michael’s video tutorial on how to replace your mouse cursor:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To4v70huwAU

Michael also has created several PNG cursor graphics that he makes available for download. Thanks Michael!