Forum Discussion
Blurring text for privacy
I'm building courses for the staff at a college and it is sometimes necessary to display personal information on students in screenshots. Is there a way to blur this information to keep it private? I can do it in my photo editing software before importing the picture but was wondering if there is a way to do it after bringing the picture into Storyline 360.
Hi Steve! If you're looking to avoid using an image editor prior to importing the image into Storyline, you could try inserting a semi-transparent rectangle over the personal information.
I'm sure a built-in blur tool would be really helpful for lots of folks, so that would make an excellent feature request! Thanks for letting us know what you'd like to see. ☺️
8 Years later and still no blur feature available in Storyline. Ridiculous !!!!
Yes, blur tool, please.
Wow, can't believe there's not a blur tool built into the tool. Ridiculous.
I, too, would like to upvote this request to be able to blur out text within Storyline while building sims.
Camtasia can blur parts of a software simulation.
Yes it can.
Greetings, Tommy!
Storyline won't be able to blur areas of a video apart from adding shapes to the slide on top of it.
Here is another discussion where folks are brainstorming on how to achieve this—and I hope the community can weigh in on their experience with video editing software that censors private information!
Any idea how to do this for video?
Hi Tommy, when not using Articulate step by step video facilities for interactive simulations, I use the Davinci Resolve 16 tool to edit my videos. It's a bit daunting at first as it's a top end tool used by professional videographers - but I have muddled my way through to great effect with about 0.001% of its functionality!
If you have used a tool like Adobe Premier Pro, this is very similar - with the main difference being that it is FREE.
There are many training videos on YouTube for Davinci Resolve (including several "Getting Started with …") and an excellent (though sizable) online user manual. And just this week I successfully followed and made notes from a video (see below) that showed me how to blur any areas for any duration of time - critical for my training videos which often feature patient sensitive details. You can, of course, import your edited videos into Articulate Storyline.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2La0prUK2DY
I hope this helps. The final effect is professional looking and far more polished than using PowerPoint/Storyline shapes etc.
Regards
Thank you for your replies, I ended up using and learning Davinci Resolve 16 for this. You can get a free version which is absolutely amazing.
I am using a step-by-step recording done within Storyline, so it wasn't imported. There is sensitive information on-screen that I would like to blur. I've tried using a semi-transparent shape, and not only does it look like trash, you can clearly read the text underneath. Does anyone have any new solutions for this?
Not a total solution, but when I was doing software recording/simulations where there was the possibility of PII being displayed, I would be working in the QA environment (never Production) and using one of the test "dummy" profiles, never an actual employee or patient. Then I didn't have to worry about trying to "fix it in post."
Hi,
I use DaVinci Resolve 16 for this. They have a free version and you can create professional-looking blur-effects.
Search YouTube for tutorial.Im still waiting for Articulate to implement proper blur-effect functionality.
BR,
TommyI don't have the option to insert a bunch of synthetic data into our live Student information systems.
I'd say remember that for the eventual deposition. Your corporate counsel will need to know that before they settle out of court.
Hi Steve, there isn’t a neat way of doing what you are after in Storyline so I’d stick with your current technique for now.
I’m in a similar situation to Joe as I build software simulations of clinical systems for a hospital.
On the rare occasion where a test system isn’t available or dummying data for several test patients isn’t feasible, I resort to using the (fantastic) video blurring facilities of Davinci Resolve (the feature-packed tool is initially very intimidating and even after a couple of year’s use, I find it helps to focus on just what I need to do). Alternatively and if I’m happy to use something less refined, I use Microsoft ClipChamp.
There are several YouTube tutorials on using the above tools for blurring. Hopefully, one day the Articulate developers will take note of the need for more dedicated blurring facilities in their tools.
Update: I found this tutorial that will work for me for the slides that don't include scrolling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_4XKcfjJKc&feature=emb_title
However, for the slides that do include scrolling, I still need a solution.
Tommy, I saw that solution, and it seems to help a lot of people! However, my company is very particular about the software we can use. Articulate and TechSmith are approved, so if there's a solution within them, I would definitely like to explore that. Otherwise, a new software request will take months (and quite a few irrate emails).
Madison, TechSmith SnagIt does have an excellent blur tool. While it won't work for a video, for a screen recording converted to view, try, or test mode, each slide's screenshot could be copied into SnagIt, the PII blurred out, and then copied back to the slide. It would be a lot of tedious work for a large project, but it would definitely work.
THIS IS AMAZING! Everyone should check this out. Makes blurring or many, many other edits possible with a few clicks. Excellent and seamless integration with programs like GIMP and SnagIt! Thank you soooooo much for sharing this link.
I just want to be sure this is clearly noticed on the thread. It is the fix for so many things.
Just wanted to add my thanks to Mind Garden and Madison Jurgens for a really great tip!
What's even better is that having done a screen recording with Storyline you still have the original to create or recreate new non-blurred versions if you change your mind.
