Presentations are very visual, and sometimes PowerPoint’s internal tools are not up to the job of creating all design elements for a professional presentation slide design. I am continuing our Adobe Express series looking at how it can help presentation design with techniques such as removing the background from a photo, designing stylized text or creating videos. These can be done within PowerPoint, but its internal tools are often not able to provide polished and professional results. Adobe Express adds a next level quality to these image needs.

Adobe Express is a free, online platform which provides a new option that is a straightforward, user-friendly approach to photo and video editing. It has an amazing Remove Background feature for images that is incredibly easy to use, and an immediate fit for presentation design needs.

Many times at TLC Creative, we use photos that need to be masked and the background elements removed. We sometimes will use the Remove Background tool within PowerPoint – sometimes… Our general go-to process is pulling the image into Photoshop and either manually clip and mask with a pen tool (still a great design skill!) or utilize Photoshop’s Generative AI to isolate the subject and remove the background. The image is then cropped to the visible pixels, exported as a PNG, then imported into PowerPoint.

The background removal tool in Adobe Express uses the same AI-powered technology to automatically detect and separate the subject from the background in an image. It has fewer adjustments and tools over Photoshop, but the results are fast and quite literally amazing. Plus, it is web-based, so there is no software to install. This is ideal for masking profile pictures or product shots without the need for advanced editing skills.

In this example, you can see the original, and how PowerPoint’s remove background vs. Adobe Express’s remove background perform. Of special note is the curly, feathered hair. PowerPoint’s remove background tool is just not up to the task, even with lots of fine tuning on the removed parts. The Adobe Express image, completed in 1-click is presentation ready. The only downside is the extra steps and work outside of PowerPoint.

Now let’s take a look at the Adobe Express interface and how to use the Remove Background feature. There are two ways to do this:

Option 1: Modify an Existing Photo on Your Computer

  1. From the web-based app home page.
  2. Under More ways to start section, click the Remove background
  3. In the new screen click the BROWSE button or drag and drop an image.
  4. That’s it – done! Here is the original image:
  5. And Adobe Express’s background removed:
  6. Two notes:
    1. This option does not allow you to select from stock photos or the cloud.
    2. The image must be a JPEG, JPG or PNG, and under 40MB in size.
  7. DOWNLOAD as a .PNG with transparent background,
  8. Or before downloading, use the options to add a colored or patterned background,
  9. Last, Adobe Express does have an online image editor with more advanced features, click the OPEN IN EDITOR

Option 2: Modify a Photo from Adobe Stock

Before demonstrating this option, it is important to know that Adobe has Adobe Stock. Adobe Stock is a paid service with literally millions of royalty free photos, illustrations, videos and music assets (TLC Creative has selected Adobe Stock as the resource for our design team). But for this blog post, the key bit of information is that Adobe Express, which is free to use, provides access to what they list as “over 1 million royalty-free photos”!!

TIP: this is a great, free, photo resource for presentation design!

  1. From the Adobe Express home page, in the upper right corner, click the big blue plus buttons.
  2. This opens the GET STARTED screen, which in other areas of the app is labelled as starting an “image from scratch.”
  3. For slides, click the LANDSCAPE aspect ratio button.
    1. TIP: Adobe Express has dozens of options. From the basic square, landscape and portrait modes to the pre-set sizes of all major social media, video and print media needs.
  4. Choose the Media option on the left column tool bar.

    1. There is an UPLOAD FROM DEVICE button, which is the same process as Option 1, just a longer way of getting there.
    2. The GENERATE IMAGE is Adobe’s AI that creates images from text prompts (the same engine is available on Adobe Stock, and it creates some really great images – but it is free here!).
    3. Below that is where you can search the Adobe Stock images available through Adobe Express. Use the SEARCH bar or the categories.
  5. Find a desired photo, click on it and Express will automatically add onto the editing canvas.
  6. Click the Remove background button and it’s gone. In the example below, we purposely have chosen a subject with a busy background to show the capabilities. Notice the thin strands of hair that remain.
  7. Change the canvas background to none. This will ensure a transparent background when exporting.
  8. Click Download and choose the PNG option. One thing to note, because we chose a template size of 1920px x 1080px (16:9), the new image will export at that size. Not the size of the edited photo. Adobe Express does have a crop tool, however it will only crop the photo on its layer. It does not crop the entire canvas size.
  9. Insert the new image into a PowerPoint file or set as background so the image fills page.

The new offering from Adobe, Adobe Express, is separate from Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions, so it can be a standalone set of design tools or used in conjunction with an Adobe CC subscription. These are just a few of the photo editing and design tools that work for presentation design where images are needed. Explore the Adobe Express offering here.

Mike @ TLC Creative