an intro to image editing with powerpoint

An Intro To Image Editing With PowerPoint

Hidden Gems

What felt like an Einstein moment

After years of thinking my Photoshop-less mac was useless at any sort of image editing, I made a rather exciting discovery yesterday, while using PowerPoint no less!

I had the task of cutting individual countries out of a world map image, and was so startled by the ease of which I did it I thought it would be rude not to share the knowledge.

I used Office 2011 for Mac, it also works on PC’s with Office 2010 but the layout is slightly different, and I’ve since noticed this is also possible in Word.

First, insert your image onto a slide, click it and click the format picture tab, then crop it down to the size you would like using the crop tool.

Next click on the image and click the Remove Background button

This prompts this lovely purple background to spring into action, which represents the bits you will be cutting out.

On a Mac use your mouse to draw lines in the areas within this box that you would also like to exclude from the foreground image, making sure there is a

– sign by your mouse pointer and not the + sign.

On a PC there is the option to select ‘include this’ or ‘exclude this’ boxes in the formatting bar, then click the bits of the picture you want to

include/exclude.

You can then reduce the size of the inner box until it is just outside the image you want to be left with.

Once you’re happy, click the remove background button again and voila, Africa with holes!

Check out how it looks with China

Then simply save the image and you can export it wherever you fancy.

Once I’d discovered this tool it prompted me to look for other ways PowerPoint could make image editing easier.

Next I checked out the ‘Filters’, which are called ‘Artistic Effects’ on the PC version.

These were great and provided me with lots of fun options.

Then it was time to play with the ‘Recolor’ options, called ‘Color’ on PC.

As you can see the amount off different effects is great, giving you the chance to change pictures to reflect all sorts of different vibes.

Next I made my way left along the panel to the ‘Corrections’ option, slightly less exciting than the others but useful nonetheless.

So as you can see PowerPoint provides quick and easy free image editing capabilities that can improve the presentations you create.

You could also use it to edit images for posting on social media, using in blog posts, or even on your website.