One of the things that has been bugging me recently is the use (and abuse) of images in slides. It seems that more and more people are recognising the need move away from bullet point slides, but without ‘knowing the why of it’. That means they just tart up a bullet point slide with images, which at best do nothing and at worst are actually visually painful.
A bullet point slide with clip art isn’t an image slide, for heaven’s sake – it’s a bullet point slide with clip art!
With that in mind, and having nothing better to do for half an hour, I thought I’d see if I could come up with some guidelines for using images in your presentations. Putting things in a silly acronym might make it more memorable, too, so (as they say), here goes nothing…. 
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you (hesitantly) CROP.
Contrast (or colours, if you like). Saturated colours and high contrast, please. The number of times I’ve struggled to see the picture on a slide because it’s too ‘flat’ is beyond counting.
There are a number of things to remember… firstly, a quick snap on your cameraphone won’t do. They might be works of technological wonder but all too often the camera doesn’t quite cut it… Flash is a nightmare because it flattens pictures, too.
Secondly, a data projector won’t push the colours through that you need… and if it does, the balance between the colours won’t look like it does on your computer’s screen.
So then, rule one, images must have a very high contrast. So high in fact, that it might not look so good before it’s projected.
Rights – this is an obvious one, no? Make sure you’ve got the rights. Just because it’s online doesn’t mean it’s usable. If in doubt, pay for it. But if you really don’t want to pay for it, use the advanced search function on google to filter out images that don’t have a license that allows you to use them.
Google's advanced search function
The button you need to push is this one in the top right hand corner of the image, to the right of the search function.
Obvious. Don’t get clever. It’s all too easy to get carried away with your images. I recently saw a presentation about security which was talking about ‘keeping a low profile’… and the image was for a set of low profile sports tyres again? A lovely picture it was, too… beautiful. And very clever, too. Very clever indeed.
The only problem was that it was too clever, too subtle. I saw blank faces as people spent a minute or two trying to figure out what the images were all about.
Plain (or patterned) - if you want to have any text on your slide you’ll need a clear background so that the text stands out. Positioning the features of the image on your slide is a whole blog to itself (google the rule of thirds) but however you position things you’ll need a blank canvas part of the screen to work with.
Looking at a couple of examples you’ll see what I mean (I hope!). I like this pic of a grasshopper sitting on a green leaf. The points of focus in the picture are clear and obvious; there’s plenty of contrast and – importantly – I can put some text down into the bottom right hand third of the image without any problem. (Obviously there’s an issue about the life expectancy of a brown grasshopper which decides to ‘hide’ on a bright green leaf instead of the brown wood and stems that it is camouflaged for, but that’s a different problem!)
Compare that with this shot. It’s harder to pick out the insect of interest (are you listening grasshopper – that’s what camouflage is for!). What’s more, as the image stands it’s hard to figure out where to put any text and with the best will in the world it would be hard to make text stand out and be clearly and easily read. Of course you could do it by making the text huge (not always wrong! ) but that cuts down your options even further.
Don’t get me wrong – these are just guidelines and I’m not sure they’re the finished product of my musings: consider CROP a work-in-progress. Additions and corrections are welcomed….
Hat-tips for the use of the images to http://frank.itlab.us/photo_essays/wrapper.php?sep_28_2007_duke.html and http://www.public-domain-image.com/fauna-animals-public-domain-images-pictures/insects-and-bugs-public-domain-images-pictures/grasshopper-pictures/grasshopper-insect-immature-grasshopper.jpg.html. Both are great shots and any implied critisism isn’t about the pic!