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PowerPoint And Backgrounds
by Geetesh Bajaj
Presentations Are Paintings
PowerPoint Makes it Easy
A Few Questions
Create Your Own
Off the Beaten Track
Changing Background Colours
Continued on Page 2...
Presentations Are Paintings
If a presentation were a painting, then it's background would
be a canvas. As any painter worth their palettes will tell you,
a lot of thought goes into the selection and curing of a blank
canvas. And that's even before the first streak of charcoal or
a load of paint touches the very medium. Presentations are similar
- a well designed background can lend immense value to the final
product.
Choosing a proper background is a significant job - it can set
the ambience for your presentation. Colours, textures and images
play an important psychological role that may enhance the creativity
and suitability of a story or theme.
Backgrounds need to be elegant and subdued - it's purpose is to
never distract your audience from an actual event. Simplicity is
of paramount value.
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PowerPoint Makes It Easy
PowerPoint is a premier presentation tool and Microsoft has added
many features which allow you to use backgrounds in myriad ways.
This barrage of options comes with both merits and perils. A huge
variety of options means that it's easy to input backgrounds into
PowerPoint - although it's equally simple to end up with a gargantuan
misendeavour.
Many of you may not believe this but a blank white background
can be a base for a real killer presentation. And black doesn't
work every time. Gradients work great for simple presentations
and photo shows - but definitely not as a backdrop to figures and
charts. Simple textures in light pastel colours are definitely
the 'in' thing for most presentations, but they are certainly 'out'
as far as kiosk shows are concerned.
This proves that a lot more thought has to be concentrated towards
the concept and creation of backgrounds. If only backgrounds stood
in the background, things would be so simple...In that case, I
wouldn't be writing this article, nor would you be reading it this
far!
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A Few Questions
At this stage, we all have a few questions unanswered. First -
do you create or choose a background - about the spectrum of readymade
backgrounds available and the plunge to create your own within
or outside the PowerPoint environment, and more...
Let's start unraveling the secrets.
Looking first at readymade backgrounds - in fact a majority of
the free and commercial PowerPoint design templates available online
are new backgrounds embedded within a PowerPoint compartment -
ready to use. You'll find scores of such templates if you follow
the links at Indezine's PowerPoint
Templates page.
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Create Your Own
The second and more fulfilling way is to create your own backgrounds.
There are a few options to design them within PowerPoint itself,
but for more elaborate and distinguished results, you should look
at image editing software like Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter and
Corel PhotoPaint. These three are far from the only options available
- other alternatives include Jasc Paint Shop Pro, Ulead PhotoImpact,
Micrografx Picture Publisher, etc.
Adobe Photoshop is
the epitome of all image editing applications - it has among the
largest user bases and few programs have as faithful a following
as Photoshop. Even though, Photoshop is severely limited when you're
creating PowerPoint backgrounds from scratch. If you're scanning
an image or accessing it from a digital camera - well, in that
case Photoshop is all you need! Adobe also produces a cut-down
version called Photoshop LE.
Corel Painter is
definitely not a competitor to Photoshop - in fact both programs
work more like companions. There's no equal to Painter if you want
to start from scratch. It's the digital equivalent of paper, texture,
brush and colour - nothing even comes close. For most purposes,
you can work with Corel's stripped down version called Painter
Classic.
Corel PhotoPaint is
something in-between Photoshop and Painter, both in name and spirit.
No other program gives you as many options - if there's only one
program you can use - then PhotoPaint will cover all essentials.
And it does a lot more - neither Photoshop nor Painter can open
as many formats as PhotoPaint.
Jasc Paint Shop
Pro started life as a poor man's alternative to Photoshop
- even today it is priced much lower than Photoshop - yet it
manages to do almost as much. The interface however still needs
a revamp.
Ulead PhotoImpact is
an elegant solution for most needs - it closely mimics the PowerPoint
interface - so that makes it attractive to PowerPoint users. It
comes with a slew of effects, each previewed in many variants.
Micrografx
Picture Publisher (now part of Corel) is almost as
old as Photoshop itself - a few years ago, it was considered
almost as good as Photoshop. It still is a great program -
there are a lot of wizards which do under-the-cover jobs for
you.
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Off The Beaten
Track
BlackBelt Systems makes WinImages -
it's no easy program to learn, but the rewards are exemplary. No
other program can create more intricate backgrounds from scratch.
WinImages also opens pictures in many formats including Photoshop.
The 'Photoshop' of Linux - Gimp is
also available on the Windows platform. It offers great depth in
all spheres - definitely something to look out for.
Corel Bryce can
render exceptional backgrounds - although anyone from a mile away
can ascertain the source of your creation.
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Changing Background Colours
If you are creating a presentation with many elements like charts,
tables, pictures, text content, etc. - then maybe you should consider
a plain colour background. Plain colour backgrounds are safe and
elegant - and it's easy to choose any colour.
- Select Format -> Background
- In the resultant dialog box, open the drop down list next to
the down arrow - this will reveal 8 colour swatches - if you
want to use any of these colours as the background, colour, just
click on the respective colour swatch.
- In many instances, you may want to choose another colour -
click on the 'More Colours...' option.
- This will open the 'Colours' dialog box - with two tabs:Standard
and Custom.
- The 'Standard' tab contains a hexagonal colour picker where
you can choose any predetermined colour.
- If you require a different shade, then click the 'Custom' tab.
- The Custom tab shows a spectrum of colours - you can click
anywhere in the spectrum to choose your colour - you can also
entire exact HSL or RGB values to use an exact shade - maybe
something which matches your corporate colours.
- Click 'OK'.
- Click 'Apply to All' to change the background colour for the
entire presentation, or just 'Apply' to change only the current
slide's background.
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