Re: Help! Cartoons for PowerPoint presentation (long)

[John_F_Renish -at- NOTES -dot- SEAGATE -dot- COM]

Nancy Allison wrote:

> I'm going to give a talk in August at a conference. To add a little
> interest
> and humor, I've hired an artist to draw some topical cartoons.
>
> I've never done this before. I need to advise the artist on what size the
> originals should be, what line width, etc. I will be scanning the art
into
> the computer -- the artist does not have a computer and will be working
on
> paper. I've already said that the cartoons need to be simple -- no fine
> lines or lots of little details. But I'm sure there's more practical info
I
> can give her.

Bill Friend (Bill -at- BFDesign -dot- com), who is a PowerPoint god (he does shows all
over the world), gives this advice:

"I typically scan images at twice the size I need them and scale them down
in
PowerPoint. If it's going to only be shown on screen then scanning the file
at
72dpi will work fine. If the file will also be printed, scan the image at
150dpi.

Save the file as a .jpg and import it. You can scale the image by selecting
it,
and pulling one of the corner "handles" to the size you want it. If the
PowerPoint file will have a color background and the cartoon has a white
box
around the image, you can use the "remove color" tool in the image tool box
(it's the one with the paintbrush above a small right angle.) and click on
the
white and it will disappear. However, any other places white is shown will
also
disappear."

Nancy also asked:
> ----Does the term "anti-aliasing" have some relevance to any of this? Is
> there something I can do to make the cartoons look as good as possible
> online?

Antialiasing provides slightly-different pixel colors and intensities
adjacent to edges, narrow lines, and the like. It gives a fuzzy appearance
when viewed close up, but it fools the eye into seeing smoother curves and
color transitions when viewed at a distance. Look at the Windows splash
screen next time you boot your computer to see a good example of
antialiasing.

hth,
John_F_Renish -at- notes -dot- seagate -dot- com, San Jose, California, USA
My comments represent my personal views and not those of my employer.


 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=