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
Oh What a (9th) Day!
Today is great! It is September 9th, which equals 09-09-09
(9th month, 9th day, 9th year of 2000) – very cool.
…yes, the image was created in PPT 2007.
– Troy @ TLC
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
Powerpoint in the “Western World”
The BBC’s online News Magazine recently had an interesting story on PowerPoint. But the large, dominant text of the subhead (more visible than the actual story title “The Problem with PowerPoint”) is what really caught my attention.
– Troy @ TLC
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
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
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