PowerPoint is an easy and effective program to create graphics for all sorts of projects. What you can create is up to your imagination, but for home based projects such as homework or adding elements to a photo, PowerPoint is all you need.
PowerPoint has an array of tool to create professional looking graphics which can be saved as an image and used in any way you wish. Photos may be imported into PowerPoint, edited and saved as an image, ready to print or share by email. In this article we go through some of the techniques used to create this image. For full step by step instructions, please watch the video.
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Grouping: The border of this banner is made up of multiple “donut” shapes. When working with multiple shapes like this, click and drag your mouse over the shapes to select them all, right click them and select Group, and then Group. This keeps them all together so that when one moves, the rest move with it.
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Shape Effects: This photo has a faint oval around the baby’s face. This is achieved by inserting the donut shape and resizing it to fit around the face. You then set the fill colour to white on the Format tab and the shape outline to none. Finally click the “Shape Effects” dropdown list and select “Soft Edges” and hover over each of the options to select the desired effect.
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Save as Image: Once you have completed your design, press the CTRL and A keys together to select all the objects in the slide. Right click one of the objects and select “Save as Picture” and save it in a folder. If your design has parts that stick out and don’t actually form part of the design, you can use paint.net to crop the image down to the right size once it is saved. Refer to the July 2014 issue for instructions.
Use it!: Now the design has been saved as an image, you can use it however you want. If you have designed a symbol or logo, the image can be inserted into documents or even used on a website or email. If you have created a photo, you can share it by email or print it just like a normal photo.
