I often need graphics for presentations, sales pages, and blog posts (like this one). One technique that works for me is to create a collage of several images. Here’s an example.
This collage is supposed to show emotions of doubt, frustration, and worry.
Not only can I get multiple facial expressions this way, but I can get a diversity of people, so I can appeal to a variety of readers.
A collage of photos is very simple to create. Here are the steps:
- Choose Insert, Picture or Insert, Online Pictures/Clip Art (will vary according to your version of PowerPoint) and insert several images.
- Tip: You want images that use a similar style. In this case, two of the three had a white background, so I removed the background of the third to match. The photo of the woman with the blond hair is a little light, but you don’t have to be too particular.
- Resize them so that they’re all similarly sized. You can eyeball this.
- Select them all and click the Format tab. From the Picture Styles gallery, choose a style for all of the photos. I chose “Drop Shadow Rectangle.” Another one I like is “Rotated White.” which looks like an old-fashioned snapshot.
- Move them together so that they overlap slightly.
- Use the Rotation handle to rotate them a little in different directions, to give a random quality.
- You will probably also need to adjust which is in front, so right-click and choose Send to Back, Send to Front, etc. to get the look you want.
- When you like the result, select them all. An easy way to select all of the images is to click above the top-left corner of the images and drag to the bottom-right. You’ll see a selection window as you drag.
- Right-click any of the images and choose Save as Picture.
- Save the collage and use it wherever you need it!
Remember that people’s faces elicit powerful emotions in your audience, much more so than pictures of objects or just words.
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Do you create collages? How do you use them? Leave a comment! And feel free to share this post by using the share buttons below.
Thanks Ellen – that’s a nice effect.
One treatment I really like with photos in a collage is to format them so they look a bit like Polaroids or other photo prints, with a white border.
Hey, Ellen. I’m glad that you’ve listed the steps required to make a collage of photos. I have a humanities class that requires us to take pictures. I’m not very good at it, but that’s what the class is for! Where do you find all of your pictures?
Alex Jennings |
Alex, I have a blog post listing places to find images at http://www.ellenfinkelstein.com/pptblog/find-free-photos-and-images-for-powerpoint/