Oct
27
Written by:
host
10/27/2009 7:00 AM
A background slide is a type of PowerPoint (or Keynote, for Mac users) slide that works very well for both song lyrics and for presentation pages after the title slide. Essentially, it's a muted version of the theme slide, with the titles deleted. If you're not quite sure what I mean, you can see an example of variations on a theme slide for worship here.
Making a background slide is incredibly easy, yet many people who are not very familiar with computer graphics often don't realize just what a simple process it is. Here's a step-by-step tutorial, using a simple slide I created using a stock image and a terrific, free graphics program called IrfanView. You can do the same thing with virtually every graphics program—even in PowerPoint or your favorite worship software program if you wish—but IrfanView's worth downloading due to its huge feature set, tiny size, and super-stable performance. (IrfanView is a PC program. Mac users, you may wish to try Seashore.)
Step 1: Create your main theme slide. (The topic of creating a great theme slide deserves it's own post, but for now I'll assume you have at least some sense of what makes for a good design.) My original is above.
- Find and save your graphic image . I frequently use clipart.com and fotolia.com.
- Open the image in IrfanView (File > Open)
- If you don't see the Paint too window, hit F12 or select Edit > Show Paint dialog
- Click on the large A, which is the text tool
- Click in your image and add your text.
- Save your image (File > Save, or File > Save as... if you want to change the file name or graphic type)
Step 2: Create a title-less slide. That's simple enough...just delete the text from your main theme slide you just created, or reopen the original version.
Step 3: Create your background slide.
- Using your title-less picture, select Image > Color corrections (or Shift+G)
- Increase the Brightness to around 200. You may also wish to increase or decrease the Contrast slightly. Just experiment until you find a look in the "New image" window that you like.
- Save your new graphic with a new name.
Step 4: Create your PowerPoint / Keynote / worship software slide. The instructions for each software will vary a bit, but essentially you want to make your new image the background image. In PowerPoint, you'll do that as follows...
- In a blank slide, right click on the background, then select Background.
- From the drop-down menu, select Fill Effects, then click the Picture tab.
- Choose the background slide you created.
- Click OK, then either Apply to apply to the current slide or Apply All to make that the default background.
You don't have to be a genius at Photoshop to make a great song lyric or presentation slide! When you use a background slide instead of some random, boring PowerPoint background, you'll help your talk, sermon, lesson, or lyrics to have greater cohesion with the whole. Give it a try!
p.s. As a bonus, my friends at Midnight Oil Productions (the true experts at worship graphics) are giving away your choice of over 100 announcement slides. Choose one you like and try these instructions using your free image!
~ by Tim Gossett