size of photos for a Powerpoint Presentation

<p>Hi,<br>

Our rugby team is celebrating their 40th anniversary in 10 days. I am in the process of putting together a powerpoint slide show of photos spanning those 40 years - action shots, social shots, etc.<br>

It could prove to be a big file, given the scope of the work. What is the best resolution for photos to be put in powerpoint so it can be shown on a larger screen. Currently I have the pics at 7.5x5 at 300 ppi or therabouts. Is that too big. Can I size down and still get good photo quality.<br>

any advice would be great since I want to make this as doable as possible.<br>

Thanks<br>

Sheryl</p>

<p>[[Currently I have the pics at 7.5x5 at 300 ppi or therabouts]]</p>

<p>You should match, and not exceed, the pixel resolution of the display, (assuming the photos will be full screen in each slide). If you show the images on a modern HD TV or HD projector, then the dimensions should be no taller than 1080 pixels.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>The ppi is irrelevant when you are displaying images on a computer, which what you are really doing. I use Open Office Impress which creates PowerPoint compatible files and works almost identically to PP. I first resize the landscape images to about 800 pixels wide, then place them on the "PowerPoint" slide. The actual size isn't too important because if the image is too large or too small, there are green "handles" at the corners and on the sides that are used to resize the image on the fly. I'm assuming PowerPoint works the same way here - if you hold the shift key and drag a corner handle, the aspect ration is maintained. PowerPoint may work differently, but I'm sure it has the same capabilities.</p>

<p>so does that mean that if I have an image that's 3x5, height 1080 pixels, width 1620 pixels wide, resolution at 300 ppi it will work. Can the resolution be less, say, 180 and still produce a good image on a screen?<br>

This is a new project for me, so need to work smarter on this. Looking at about 500-750 pics to do.<br>

Sheryl</p>

<p>I would probably resize to 1200x800, which has a vertical equal to what many current data projectors can produce, and a horizontal a little less than the projector. 1200x800 maintains your aspect ratio.</p>

<p>What do you mean 3x5 and 7.5 x 5? Are those inches or what? </p>

<p>There is no such thing as resolution of 300ppi. That only is used when you are printing the image. The resolution is what it is such as 1200 x 900 is an image that has 1200 pixels on one side by 900 on the other and the total amount of pixels is the multiple of those two nuimbers. 1,080,000 pixels or 1mb rounded off. Id you print it at 300ppi you will get an print size of 4"x3". If you print it at 150ppi the print will be 8"x6". However, the resolution never chanhges-it still 1200x900 pixels. How that explains it.</p>

<p>so 1200 Wide by 800 high then. all the pics are 1080 high. If I move to 1200 wide I know they won't be <strong><em>exactly</em> </strong>800 high, since the pics aren't all cropped the same size. Does it matter?<br>

not sure what the bar I'm showing this has - think it will be on an HD TV screen.<br>

I've also heard 1024x768 too. So I'm confused.<br>

all the pp slides will have a red background around them since the pics won't all be the same size, which is ok.</p>

<p>Alan,<br>

pics on file are 6.5 x 4.3 (approx), pixel dimensions 1620 wide x 1080 high. Currently<br>

if that helps.<br>

I just don't want them to be too big - the presentation is already 500 MB - some of earlier pics put it may have to be sized back, since I know now they are too big.<br>

sheryl</p>

<p>The inches and ppi are meaningless in this instance. The pixel dimensions are the only thing that you need to be concerned with.</p>

<p>+1 - Pixel dimensions it is.<br>

Here is a good site for answers like this-<br>

http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00415_What-s_the_best_resolution_for_images_in_PowerPoint_screen_shows-_.htm</p>

<p>and a link to Microsoft Knowledgebase-<br>

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;2002066&sd=rss&spid=11264</p>

<p>I did some tweaking and am keeping it at least 800 pixels high, width running a little over 1024 pixels. Made the resolution a bit lower too (180 instead of 300) - seems to work just as well, and memory-wise I can get more slides in that way too. May have to shrink the ones I already did, but that's no biggie.</p>

<p>If the images are too large, PowerPoint will handle it, but the resulting pptx file can be enormous.<br>

I'd suggest trying out various reduced sizes on something close to the way they will be shown. You don't get any real benefit from having super large images, and pay a penalty in file size and speed.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I did some tweaking and am keeping it at least 800 pixels high, width running a little over 1024 pixels. Made the resolution a bit lower too (180 instead of 300)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The resolution value has NO bearing on any of this as was pointed out above. 800x1024 is just that, no matter if it says 800x1024@180 or 800x1024@300. Work in pixels, ignore the resolution. </p>

<p>This all makes sense now - thanks for that.<br>

However, the only problem I'm finding is that the images get cut off at the sides when the slide gets viewed, so some of shots don't show all the action in them. People's heads, rears get chopped.<br>

so, means it would have to be smaller than the 1024x768 for it to fit in the PP slide itself? not like the images are perfectly square to begin with.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>However, the only problem I'm finding is that the images get cut off at the sides when the slide gets viewed, so some of shots don't show all the action in them. People's heads, rears get chopped.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Sounds like you need to figure out the appropriate aspect ratio here. 1024x768 might not be the right ratio for some or all the images. Ideally you can resample down by specifying what you want along the long axis, and the short axis will update without cropping. This depends on what you're using for the resample work. For example, in Lightroom, you can select all the images, select 1024 as the long axis and it will resize each image to that size but maintain the short axis such there is no cropping. Some images might fit at 768, some might have a different value which is fine. </p>

<p>I've decided to keep the long (wide) axis at 1024, since most of the photos are horizontal. And it seems to work. As long as the sharpness is there (my other concern), it should be fine I think.</p>

 

<p>I'd match your projector's max resolution (probably ~1024x768) and use the "set up slideshow" function in power point to lock in the resolution accordingly, and not get stuck with an odd aspect ratio.</p>