The PowerPoint® Blog

I work with PowerPoint on a daily basis and I am very honored to be a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP. We have a talented team of presentation designers at TLC Creative Services and ThePowerPointBlog is our area to highlight PowerPoint tips, tricks, examples and tutorials. Enjoy! Troy Chollar

Stock.Xchng A Free Option!

“Stock Exchange” (Stock.XCHNG) bills itself as the leading FREE stock photo site- and I would have to agree. This is definitely one of my go-to resources as the quality is good, image size is great (near fullsize print quality) and it is a true image site, though the search can give limited results. It does have ties with pay sites, so note the 1st row of images on each page is not part of the free options (and that’s why they look perfect). Another consideration is everything is a .jpg image, even the vector looking images (because the vector version is available at the affiliated pay site).

Raster/Photo images: Yes
Vector images: No
Video: No
Audio: No
Pay Per Image: No – They are all free!
Subscription Download: No

Test Search Results:
1. “Fast Car” = 262 results
2. “Medical Consultation” = 0 results
* With alternate search terms I was able to located 100’s of images for each, just took more effort.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:38:59-07:00September 25th, 2009|Resource/Misc|

iStockPhoto – Independent Artists for Variety

iStockPhoto can take credit for revolutionizing royalty free images. They permit anyone to upload images (vs. contracted artists/photographers) and the artist receives a royalty whenever the image is purchased (vs. paying upfront fees to the contracted artists). The good is unbelievable variety, often outside the expected and norm (independent artists). The bad is anyone can add images, so not everything is professional and polished…

Raster/Photo images: Yes
Vector images: Yes
Video: Yes
Audio: Yes
Pay Per Image: Yes (average for “Medium” image $9 each)
Subscription Download: Sort Of

Test Search Results:
1. “Fast Car” = 11,605 results
2. “Medical Consultation” = 18,889 reults

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:39:24-07:00September 24th, 2009|Resource/Misc|

Shutterstock Photos – Lots of images, including vector!

Shutterstock Photos is one of the sites I have been using a lot lately. They offer a huge selection of images, all professional quaility, though some a bit dated and a great selection. One option I have made really good use of is the number and diversity of vector art, especially for developing template background images.

Raster/Photo images: Yes
Vector images: Yes
Video: Yes (optional with subscription)
Audio: No
Pay Per Image: Yes average $10 each)
Subscription Download: Yes (25 images per day for 1, 3, 6, 12 month durations)

Test Search Results:
1. “Fast Car” = 17,206 results
2. “Medical Consultation” = 3,696 results

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:39:52-07:00September 23rd, 2009|Resource/Misc|

Images for Presentations

We have been told ‘An image is worth a thousand words.‘
Maybe it really is ‘A 1,000 words on a slide is boring!‘

I use images a lot. They can be to accent text, or be the entire slide. Back in ancient history (10-20 years ago), we did lots and lots print design and spent lots and lots of money on royalty free images on photo CDs. If you don’t remember those days, it averaged $300-500 for a disk with 20-40 images based on a theme. A disk was usually purchased for 1 or 2 images and we hoped to be able to use other images on future projects.

Today we have a huge number of online, royalty free image sites – plus flicker, google images and even Microsoft Online. It’s does not cost much to design highly visual layouts now. So I spent a week and pulled together some information on the image sites I like and use on a regular basis. I made some notes about likes and dislikes and did the exact same image search at all to compare the results.

For the balance of September I will list a different image resource with each post, hopefully you can discover a few new ones.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:40:22-07:00September 21st, 2009|Resource/Misc|

It’s Labor Day in the U.S.

If you are in the U.S. – Happy Labor Day! It is a day of rest and honoring our labor and that of others around us.

Ironically I am in the office designing presentations for 3 clients which makes this like any other day – a day of labor… But excited to have projects with diverse clients that make life fun.

I did not open a 3D graphics program for the ‘Labor Day’ text, but PPT 2007. Uses a custom font that is embedded, so everyone should see the slide as created. Download the slide here (400k).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:41:20-07:00September 7th, 2009|Portfolio|

A Real Pie-Chart

Had this great image emailed to me the other day (perhaps you received the same email with lots of funny “pie-charts”). Sometimes you get exactly what it is called, a “pie” chart.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:42:51-07:00September 3rd, 2009|Resource/Misc|

Very Cool PPT 2010 Demo Presentation

I have been experimenting with PPT 2010 most of last month and can say this is the most excited I have been about PowerPoint in years!

On Microsoft’s PowerPoint Team Blog a new video highlighting some of the great effects was posted last week – here it is:
[youtube src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/UrBd_V7gXQ4?rel=0″]

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:43:42-07:00September 1st, 2009|PowerPoint, Resource/Misc|

Cutout Text Effect

There are lots of great Photoshop quality effects that can be easily created in PowerPoint. Here is how I create a cutout effect for text.

1. Here is our sample text. Just black text.

2. I change the text color to white.

3. Then apply one of the preset INNER SHADOWs.

4. I modify the preset settings to be darker (transparency), less blur, more distance.

5. Here is my text now with the cutout effect.

6. Finally, here is the same text set on top of a textured background where it really shows the cutout effect.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:44:35-07:00August 30th, 2009|Tutorial|
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