Presentation Tools: Image Editors

Presentation Tools available today are numerous. Thus, today I would like to focus on one subset of presentation tools: Image editors. Including images in presentations can greatly affect the way that others understand your message. And being in control of the image can contribute to your visual literacy, or the way you cognitively understand the message in a picture.1  In fact, according to design professional Maneesh Agrawala, “the most-effective visualizations capitalize on the human facility for processing visual information, thereby improving comprehension, memory, and inference.”2 The right image can both introduce your audience to your topic, and leave them with a greater impression of your message.

While this may sound daunting, editing images is a small way to make a big impact on the presentations that you make. And a few simple rules can go a long way. For example, using contrasting colors on fonts and their backgrounds, and sticking to sans serif fonts, to make it easier for your readers.3 When it comes to picking the image itself, ask yourself “Is the presentation intended to entertain, emote, inform, instruct, challenge, engage, provoke or persuade?”4 That question can help make the decision between a photo of a happy puppy (emote), and a diagram of dog tail positions (instruct).

Personally, I like to edit images with the Font Candy and Phonto apps on my phone, and the website Pixlr Express on my computer. These tools are great because they provide lots of options, are intuitive to use, and don’t require a background in graphic design. Here, I’ve included a brief description of each, and a picture to demonstrate their capabilities:

Font Candy

Font Candy offers a large library of free stock photos to choose from, which can help you to avoid any copyright issues. The image on the left is a stock photo from Font Candy, which I used in all three editor apps. In Font Candy, you can edit the colors of the photo, and overlay text with fun built-in fonts. The Image on the right is one I edited with Font Candy. It was easy to lighten the image and pick a thick, stand-out font. This ended up being a bit more edgy of an image, and I would use it for high school students or undergraduates.

Phonto

The image above was edited with Phonto. Phonto doesn’t have a vast library of backgrounds, but they make up for it with a larger selection of fonts and customization tools for text. Within Phonto, I was able to place an opaque background behind the text, to make it easier to read, as well as edit the brush stroke size to make the font thicker. I find this image to be simple, yet classic, and would use it in a business setting.

Pixlr Express

The header for this blog post was made on Pixlr Express. It is flash-based website app, and thus requires a laptop or desktop. With this editor, I uploaded the stock photo from Font Candy, and was able to edit the colors of the image and add a border. I was also able to choose from a wide variety of fonts for my text, however the editing options were limited to size and color. I was able to overlay a sticker though; the blue and purple circles on the laptop are from their “sunspots” sticker, which I made a bit opaque. I find this image to be both sophisticated, fun, and therefore applicable to a wide variety of audiences.

Final Thoughts

Editing images can make a big impact, and may be available in other presentation tools as well. Powerpoint, Google Slides, and Lucidpress all include some basic image and text editing options, just to name a few. In those tools, it is easy to add a contrasting text highlight or cropping an image to focus on one area, but these things can make a big difference. So, while aesthetics may not seem that important, it’s helpful to remember that they can add value for the audience, and connecting to the audience is what all these presentations are all about.

If you are interested in advanced photo editing tools, check out this list from Digital Trends: http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/best-free-photo-editing-software/

Sources

1. Silverman, Karyn N. and Joy Piedmont. "READING the BIG PICTURE a Visual Literacy Curriculum for Today." Knowledge Quest, vol. 44, no. 5, May/Jun2016, pp. 32-37. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.palomar.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lxh&AN=114940553&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
2. AGRAWALA, MANEESH, et al. "Design Principles for Visual Communication." Communications of the ACM, vol. 54, no. 4, Apr. 2011, pp. 60-69. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1145/1924421.1924439.
3. LaBanca, Frank. "The 21St-Century Oral Presentation Tool Bag." Science Teacher, vol. 78, no. 7, Oct. 2011, pp. 51-55. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.palomar.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=66001700&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
4. Lamb, Annette and Larry Johnson. "Stop Powerpoint Paranoia: Thinking Differently about Presentation Projects." Teacher Librarian, vol. 38, no. 5, June 2011, pp. 59-64. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.palomar.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lxh&AN=62570045&site=ehost-live&scope=site