Lesson 4: Inserting and Modifying Clip Art and Photos

Transcription

1 CNET tech sites: Price comparisons Product reviews Tech news Downloads Site map Home Your Courses Your Profile Logout FAQ Contact Us About Lesson 4: Inserting and Modifying Clip Art and Photos PowerPoint is about much more than just text! In this lesson, you'll learn how to select, insert, and modify clip art and digital photography to enhance your presentations. View Single Page Finding and Inserting Clip Art Page 1 of 6 Clip art is artwork that comes with PowerPoint or that's available from other sources, such as the Internet. There are thousands of common images that you can use royalty-free in your work, so you don't have to draw your own images. For example, you're creating a presentation about swimming pools. Rather than hiring an artist to draw pictures of people swimming, you can use PowerPoint's stock drawings of swimmers and save yourself a bundle. Jargon Buster A pixel is an individual dot in a mass of dots that forms a picture. Pictures comprised of pixels are known as bitmap images. Being the owner of a Microsoft Office product entitles you to use the huge clip art collection that Microsoft maintains online. If you're connected to the Internet while you're using PowerPoint, it can automatically pull clips from that collection as easily as it can from your own hard drive. Most of the clip art is in one of two graphic formats: WMF (Windows Metafile) or EMF (Enhanced Metafile). These formats are good because they enable you to resize the images without any loss of quality, unlike formats that rely on individual dots (pixels) to make up the images (such as scanned photos). WARNING Make sure you don't violate any copyrights when reusing artwork you find online. Get the owner's permission and acknowledge your source. To find and insert a clip art image, use the Clip Art task pane as follows: 1. Make sure you're connected to the Internet. 2. Select Insert > Picture > Clip Art. The Clip Art task pane opens. 3. Type the keyword for the subject for which you want to search, for example swimming. 4. Click Go. Matching clips appear, as shown in Figure 4-1. Camtasia Studio 2.1 Turn a one-time presentation into an anytime event with Camtasia Studio. Record every aspect of your presenation and share it online and on CD. Free Trial!

2 Figure 4-1: Find and insert clip art on your slide Scroll through the clips, and click the one you want. It appears on the slide. (Optional) Close the Clip Art task pane. The exact position of the clip art depends on a couple of factors. One is whether the current slide uses a layout that includes a clip art placeholder. If it does, the clip art drops into that placeholder. If the layout does not include a clip art placeholder, PowerPoint changes the slide's layout to one that does include such a placeholder. However, this happens only if the Automatic layout for inserted objects option is turned on. (It's turned on by default.) You can control that option by selecting Tools > AutoCorrect Options, clicking the AutoFormat As You Type tab, and then checking or unchecking its checkbox there. When the Automatic layout for inserted objects is off, the clip art appears centered on the slide, on top of existing content and placeholders. Moving and Resizing Clip Art Page 2 of 6 Moving and resizing a clip art image is similar to doing the same to a text box, which you learned earlier in the course. To move a clip art image, drag it where you want it. The mouse pointer can be positioned anywhere over the image except over a selection handle. An outline shows where the image will be placed, as shown in Figure 4-2. Figure 4-2: Move clip art by dragging it. To resize a clip art image, drag a selection handle. Drag a corner handle to resize proportionally, or a side handle to resize in one dimension only, as shown in Figure 4-3. Learn How! Geetesh Bajaj, PowerPoint MVP, teaches you how to use Camtasia Studio 2.1 to record and share your PowerPoint presentations. Figure 4-3: Resize clip art by dragging a selection handle. Changing the Image Mode Most images can be displayed in any of four modes, shown in Figure 4-4 (modes are left to right and top to bottom).

3 Figure 4-4: Set the image's mode. Automatic: This is usually color if it's a color image. It's the image default appearance and is best for color presentations. Grayscale: This is a gray-shaded version of the original, with shades of gray substituted for each color. It works well for presentations that you'll give in one color, such as a presentation given with transparencies printed on a black-and-white printer. Black and White: The entire image consists of black and white. There's no shading. Any colors are rounded to either black or white, whichever they are closest to. This results in a loss of image quality in an image that has any shading. It works well for faxing. Washout: This is a light background image of the original, similar to a watermark, suitable for placement behind text. To change an image's mode, you need to display the Picture toolbar. It might have already appeared when you selected the image, but if not, select View > Toolbars > Picture. Click the Color button to open its menu, and then select the mode you want to use. Changing Clip Art Colors Page 3 of 6 To subtly change an image's appearance, you can use the Contrast and Brightness buttons on the Picture toolbar. Turn the brightness or contrast up or down as needed, just like you would set the controls on your TV or computer monitor. You can also change coloring more dramatically with the Recolor Picture dialog box. It enables you to select one or more colors used in the image and change them to some other color(s). Follow these steps to try it: 1. Insert a clip art image, and then select it. 2. On the Picture toolbar, click the Recolor Picture button. (It's the one that looks like a paint can pouring onto a picture.) The Recolor Picture dialog box appears showing all the colors used in the image, as shown in Figure 4-5. Free PowerPoint Backgrounds! Over 500 PowerPoint backgrounds for any style of presentation - absolutely free. Download today! Figure 4-5: Recolor Picture dialog box Select either Colors or Fills at the bottom of the dialog box. Colors shows all of the colors in the image, both lines and fills. The Fills option, on the other hand, shows only fill colors. Click the checkbox next to one of the Original colors, open the New drop-down

4 5. 6. list next to it, and then select a color to change it to. The preview updates automatically. Drag the dialog box out of the way if needed so that you can see the change in the image. Repeat for each of the colors you want to change, and then click OK when you're done. Recoloring works for clip art, but not for pictures from your scanner or digital camera. Inserting a Picture from a File Page 4 of 6 PowerPoint accepts many kinds of artwork, not just clip art. For example, you can use digital photos that you've acquired from the Internet, from a scanner, from a digital camera, or from any other source. WARNING This is important enough to mention again: Make sure you do not violate any copyrights when reusing artwork you find online. Get the owner's permission and acknowledge your source. If the picture file already exists, here's how to import it into PowerPoint: 1. Display the slide on which you want to place the image. 2. Select Insert > Picture > From File. The Insert Picture dialog box appears. 3. Select the picture you want to insert, and then click Insert. The image is inserted onto your slide. 4. Edit the image as with clip art (move, resize, change image mode, adjust brightness and contrast, and so on). Inserting a Picture Directly from a Scanner If you have a Microsoft Windows XP-compatible scanner, you can scan directly into PowerPoint. This saves time because you don't have to run the scanning software and assign a separate filename to the image outside of PowerPoint. Learn How! Geetesh Bajaj, PowerPoint MVP, teaches you how to use Camtasia Studio 2.1 to record and share your PowerPoint presentations. During the scanning process, you can decide whether to add the image to the Clip Organizer (where local clip art is stored) for future use. If you select not to, the image won't exist outside of this presentation, and you won't be able to use it in other presentations or other applications. If you do add it to the Clip Organizer, the image is placed in a file in the My Documents\My Pictures\Microsoft Clip Organizer folder, in JPG format. You can also drag the image from PowerPoint into the Clip Organizer to store a copy for future use, or copy and paste the image from the presentation into another file. To scan directly onto a slide, follow these steps: 1. Select Insert > Picture > From Scanner or Camera. The Insert Picture from Scanner or Camera dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 4-6. Figure 4-6: Insert Picture from Scanner or Camera dialog box. 2. Open the Device list, and then select your scanner. 3. Select a resolution: Web (low) or Print (high). Lower resolution means smaller file size and fewer pixels overall comprising the image. Low resolution is generally the best for presentations. 4. If you don't want to save the scanned picture in the Clip Organizer, uncheck the Add Pictures to Clip Organizer checkbox. Otherwise, leave it checked. 5. Click Insert to scan with the default settings, or click Custom Insert to make

5 6. changes to the scan settings, and then click Scan. Resize, move, or otherwise modify the picture as needed. The same basic procedure can be followed to transfer pictures from a digital camera, except the process is somewhat simpler because you don't have to specify settings for scanning. Cropping a Picture Page 5 of 6 Cropping is for those times when you only want to use part of an image. For example, you have a great photo of a person or animal, but there's extraneous detail around it that you don't want included. You can crop out the important object in the image with the cropping tool on the Picture toolbar. To use the cropping tool, follow these steps: 1. Select the image. 2. Click the Crop tool on the Picture toolbar. Your mouse pointer changes to a cropping tool. 3. Position the pointer over a side handle of the image frame, on a side where you want to cut part of the image off. 4. Drag the handle inward toward the center of the image until only the part of the image on that side that you want to keep is within the dotted line, as shown in Figure 4-7. Camtasia Studio 2.1 Turn a one-time presentation into an anytime event with Camtasia Studio. Record every aspect of your presenation and share it online and on CD. Free Trial! Figure 4-7: Crop a picture. Enlarge image 5. Repeat for each side, and then click the Crop tool again or press Esc to turn cropping mode off. After cropping, you might need to move or resize the image. Applying a Border to a Picture By default, pictures do not have borders. You can apply a border around the outside rectangular frame of the picture with the Line Color button on the Drawing toolbar. (It's the one that looks like a paintbrush painting a horizontal line.) Follow these steps to apply a border to a picture: 1. Select the image. 2. Click the down arrow to the right of the Line Color button to open its menu. 3. Select one of the scheme colors (recommended) or select More Line Colors and select a fixed color, as shown in Figure 4-8.

6 Figure 4-8: Add a border to a picture. 4. (Optional) Use the Line Style button on the Drawing toolbar to change the line's thickness. 5. (Optional) Use the Dash Style button on the Drawing toolbar to make the line dotted or dashed. Applying a Background Fill to Clip Art This formatting option works only for pictures that have a transparent background (that is, most clip art images). If the background is transparent, you can set a fill color (a background color) for the image, and the rectangular frame in which it sits will be filled with that color. If you have an image that already has a filled rectangular background, this doesn't work. To test this feature, therefore, you must insert a clip art image that isn't rectangular. For example, the one in Figure 4-9 is a good choice. Figure 4-9: An example of a clip art image with a transparent background. Select it, click the down arrow next to the Fill Color button on the Drawing toolbar, and then pick a color, as shown in Figure Figure 4-10: Fill the background of the clip art frame. Enlarge image Working with the Format Dialog Box Page 6 of 6 So far in this lesson, you've done most of your work from the Picture toolbar. However, you can also modify a picture from its own Format Picture dialog box. To do so, right-click the image and select Format Picture, or click the Format Picture button on the Picture toolbar. The Format dialog box has these tabs: Colors and Lines tab: Provides an alternative way of changing the fill color and

7 line color, line style, and line weight. Size tab: Provides an alternative way of resizing the picture. Position tab: Provides an alternative way of moving the picture. Picture tab: Provides an alternative way of cropping the image, controlling the brightness and contrast, and changing the image mode. Web tab: Enables you to enter alternative text to appear in case the image cannot be displayed. (This is common for presentations that are designed for Web viewing.) You may never have occasion to use the Format Picture dialog box, because all the controls you need are available from the Picture toolbar. However it's nice to know it's there. Creating a Photo Album This lesson finishes by covering a cool feature of PowerPoint that's designed to help you show off your photos: the Photo Album. The Photo Album feature creates a new presentation that's specifically designed as a carrier of photos. It's useful when you need to create a presentation that's very heavy on graphics, with little or no text except for picture captions. To create a photo album, follow these steps: 1. Select Insert > Picture > New Photo Album. The Photo Album dialog box appears. 2. To add a photo from a file, click the File/Disk button. The Insert New Pictures dialog box appears. 3. Select one or more pictures, and then click Insert. (To select multiple pictures, hold down Ctrl or Shift as you click the ones you want.) The photos appear in the Photo Album dialog box, as shown in Figure Free PowerPoint Backgrounds! Over 500 PowerPoint backgrounds for any style of presentation - absolutely free. Download today! Figure 4-11: Photo Album dialog box. Enlarge image 4. Repeat as needed to insert all photos from the disk that you want. 5. (Optional) If you have any photos that you need to scan or import from a digital camera, click the Scanner/Camera button, and then acquire those images as you learned earlier in the lesson. 6. For each image on the Pictures in album list, select the picture, and then apply any correction needed with the buttons beneath the Preview pane. These are the same as on the Picture toolbar. You can rotate, increase or decrease contrast, and increase or decrease brightness. 7. Use the arrows to move an image up or down in the order. 8. In the Album Layout section, select the layout for the slides from the Picture layout drop-down menu. For example, 1 Picture with Title places each picture on a separate slide. 9. If available, select a frame shape from the Frame shape list. Some options from the preceding step don't allow you to select a frame shape.

8 (Optional) To add caption boxes for each picture, check the Captions below ALL pictures checkbox. (Optional) To show the pictures in black and white, check the ALL pictures black and white checkbox. Click Create. PowerPoint creates the new presentation containing the photos and the layout you specified. Save the photo album as a presentation (File > Save). Moving On In this lesson, you learned how to incorporate clip art and photos into your PowerPoint presentations. Now you can illustrate the presentation, rather than just using plain text! Before you move on, do the assignment and take the quiz for this lesson. Also, post any questions you may have on the Message Board. Clip art and photos are far from the only types you can use in PowerPoint. In Lesson 5, you'll find out about a smorgasbord of different types of artwork and images that you can incorporate in your presentations. Featured services: Computer Shopper Magazine CNET Learning CDs CNET Tech Jobs CNET Clearance Center CNET.com CNET Download.com CNET News.com CNET Reviews CNET Shopper.com GameSpot mysimon Search.com TechRepublic ZDNet International Sites Copyright 2003 CNET Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy Terms of Use About CNET Networks