Archive for Powerpoint images
How to have better looking pictures on a web site or presentation
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One of the common complaints about graphics used in presentations or on web sites is the poor quality. Even if you scan in an image at high resolution, it seems that most graphics end up looking awful. It is usually because the size or resolution has not been properly adjusted. I recently helped someone with a photo they put on a web site that took up most of the page and took forever to load because it was 2MB.
The size of the graphic is the easier of the two areas to understand because we can just look at the image and see what size it is. If you take a large picture and simply use the sizing handles to make it smaller, the image appears the correct size, but the problem is that the graphic file is still the same size, making the presentation file huge or the web page slow to load. The quality of the image is also variable depending on how well the program displays a large image that has been resized.
The second issue is with resolution. This refers to the number of dots per inch in the picture. The higher the resolution, the better the quality of the image. Where that rule falls apart though, is where the device you are viewing the image on cannot display more than a certain resolution. And your computer monitor is a device that has a limitation. In general, computer screens display no more than 72 dpi (dots per inch). For print publications, it is not uncommon to see resolutions of 1200 dpi – even laser printers print at 300-600 dpi. When you scan an image for print use, you must scan it at the high resolution. But when you go to use it in an electronic format, you should resample it down to a lower resolution. Resampling is a process where the software intelligently removes dots from the image but does not reduce the overall quality of appearance.
To resize and resample an image requires software. You can use expensive, complex image software, or you can do what I do, which is go cheap and easy. I use a great utility called IrFanView (interesting name, great software). This utility allows you to load an image in any of dozens of formats, resize, resample and do a whole lot of other things if you need to, and then save in any of lots of formats. I have used it extensively to help my images appear crisp and clear on my web site and in presentations. I highly recommend it and encourage you to start using it to improve the quality of the images you use in presentations and online. Here is a link to download IrFanView from its home site: http://www.irfanview.com
If you include the image in a PowerPoint presentation that will be shown using a data projector, remember to check how the picture looks through the data projector. Depending on the room lighting and the brightness of the bulb, I have found many images appear much darker when displayed through a data projector than what they look like on the computer screen. You may need to adjust the brightness of the image to make it look good when displayed. To do this in PowerPoint, right click the picture and select Format Picture on the pop-up menu. Then select the Picture tab. In the Image Control section, increase the Brightness setting to above 50% (the default). You won’t need to increase it very much or it will start to wash out the details shown in the image. I usually find a setting of 55-65% to be sufficient.
The steps I usually follow when using a scanned image are:
1. Scan the image at a high resolution so I can use it in a print publication if required.
2. Resize and resample the image for use on a web site or in a presentation.
3. Adjust the brightness of the image in PowerPoint.
By taking care to get the best quality images in our presentations and web pages, we increase the impact of our message, which leads to more enthusiastic action from our audiences.
©MMIII Dave Paradi
Dave Paradi’s Think Outside the Slide™ approach helps presenters get results by showing them how to quickly create effective PowerPoint presentations. He is the co-author of “Guide to PowerPoint”, part of the Prentice Hall Series in Advanced Business Communication. He offers a free PowerPoint e-course, newsletter and articles on his web site at www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com.
How Many Slides Are Too Many?
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If you delivered 155 slides in 35 minutes, would that be too many slides? Most presenters would immediate say “Yes! Way too many!” And up until recently, I would have agreed. But a recent experience made me reconsider my initial response.
A rule of thumb has been that there should be one slide for every two to three minutes of presentation. And I have agreed with this. But I reviewed a presentation on video tape for a client from one of their top sales professionals in front of clients and he used 155 slides in a 35 minute presentation (yes, I counted). And it looked great. How could this be?
It stems from what is on the slide. Most of his slides were product photos that he showed in fairly quick succession showing off the different features. His use made it almost like a movie of sorts, with the flow working quite well. He spent more time on the text slides, such as when he was explaining how to place the order for the product. He spent time on the most important part of his presentation, the call to action, and did not stick to a particular formula.
So based on this experience, here is what I am now thinking. If it is a primarily text slide with bullets for example, I think the traditional rule of two to three minutes per slide would still be a good guideline. But when the slide is primarily a graphic, a much wider range of timing can apply. A sequence of photos may be run through quite quickly, with maybe five slides in one minute. Some graphics, such as a process flow diagram, require a two or three minute explanation. So my new thought is that a graphic slide could range from 10 seconds to three minutes, depending on what the graphic is and how it is used in the presentation.
I am starting to use more graphics, primarily photographs, in my presentations, and sometimes it is on the screen for a short period of time since the point is clear. Other times, I show the photo, tell a store about the photo, and then make a point. In this case, the photo slide is on the screen for multiple minutes.
If you have been basing the number of slides in your presentation on the traditional formula, consider these ideas in determining whether you want to modify the rule you have used in the past. If you try to count image slides using the same two to three minute rule, you may find that you cant find enough to say about the slide.
How to add and animate images into powerpoint
Posted by: | CommentsNeed to make smashing PowerPoint Presentations? Look no further. This Powerpoint tutorial is for Microsoft Powerpoint 2007. This tutorial will detail the following:
Importing image, animating image using path curve and line path. Adjusting speed of moving image.