And about that moon…
Sometimes you just do things for fun.
For the last four years I’ve produced a weekly podcast and occasionally written articles for a web site called Fanboy Planet. There’s no money in this, but usually it gets you into conventions, occasionally it gets you into great parties, and quite often it delivers great swag. The cost of most swag is that you must review it, and this week my review of the first season of the 70’s science fiction show Space:1999 is up for your reading pleasure. I’d repeat it here, but I’d much rather send you off to Fanboy Planet where you might read and listen to a great many other fun things.
-Ric
The PowerPoint Blur Trick
Wanted to let you you’re looking at the old site.
All this content and so much more has been moved to a new site that is getting the new updates!
I’d hate for you to miss it.
Go there: http://blog.ricbret.com
Subscribe there so you see all the new stuff.
Just wanted to let you know.
Cheers,
-Ric
It’s been a while between posts, so I wanted to give you something special. It’s a little longer than most, but I think you may find it worth your while. -Ric
Sometimes the right collection of commands and techniques in a software package is like a good magic trick. You don’t see the result coming until it’s right there in front of you, and it surprises you how easy it was and how good it looks.
Today I’d like to share a magical photo technique I stumbled upon in PowerPoint. It’s a version of something that pro photographers have been doing in Photoshop for years, but I think you’ll agree that this is simpler, and hey – you don’t need Photoshop!
You need to have Office 2010 (or 2011 for the Mac) to do this, because it requires a couple of features that don’t appear in earlier versions. Sorry about that, but you really should upgrade – 2010 is the best.
To start with, you need a photograph. I’m going to show this off using two different photos, both of which have “compelling” subjects, but have backgrounds that might distract or otherwise detract from the photo.
There are three features we’re going to concentrate on:
- Background Removal – Allows you to eliminate portions of a photo easily, typically leaving an object in the foreground
- Artistic Effects – Which apply various visual distortions to photographs
- Selection Pane – Makes it easy to identify and select shapes and images on a slide
Start by inserting a photo into PowerPoint. Resize as necessary and if you want it’s a great time to crop the photograph before you start enhancing it.
The key to this technique is that while it looks like one image, we’re actually dealing with two, a foreground and a background. So start by using the Duplicate command (CTRL-D) to create a second copy. Then open the selection pane (it’s in the Home tab’s Arrange menu). Things should look something like this.
With the selection pane open it’s easy to see that Picture 1 is on top of Picture 2. Your results may vary, don’t worry about the numbers – they’re going away soon. Click on that name and rename it to Foreground, then rename Picture 2 to Background. That will make it easy to keep track of things later.
Now we need to align the two shapes. Press Ctrl-A to select everything, then use the Arrange menu’s Align Center and Align Middle to put them exactly on top of each other.
We’ll start using the Background removal command now, but before that we need to hide the photo labeled Background (if that doesn’t make sense yet, hang on, it will in just a little bit.) In the Selection pane, click the Eyeball icon to the right of the label “Background”. Don’t worry, you shouldn’t see any difference because the hidden Background photo is behind the Foreground photo.
Now click on the label Foreground in the selection pane, and click on the Picture Tools Format tab. All the way to the left is the Remove Background command. This is a pretty cool tool that might take a little getting used to at first, but is a whole lot of fun once you do. Basically use the tools to get your background removed so just the foreground image is visible. If you’re having difficulty with the command, you might want to check out a blog Chris Maloney wrote on using Remove Background.
How precise you want to make this is up to you, for the purpose of this technique you can actually be a little sloppy. Eventually you want things to look like this.
Click Keep Changes and note that you should have a nice cut-out of the foreground. Now click the Eyeball icon next to the Background label in the selection pane again. No surprise there, the background is back. But we’ve isolated it from the foreground because it’s actually behind the foreground image, and that’s where the magic can happen!
Click the Background label to select the Background image again. Now click the Picture Tools Format tab again, but this time we’re going to play with the commands in the Artistic Effects menu. There are a lot of these, but let’s use the Blur effect first.
As you can see, the ability to apply the effects exclusively to the background makes the foreground image “pop” more without making it look totally unnatural the way a simple cut-out would. Professional photographers commonly apply a similar blur effect to magazine and portrait work – so you can now get out there and start making the big bucks too.
By now you may have noticed that the Artistic Effects update as your pointer moves over them, and you may have stopped reading already just to play with the different effects. That’s cool, if you have then my mission is already accomplished. But there’s one more step you should know about, getting the picture out to use elsewhere!
Because this effect uses two pictures, you’ll have to combine them in PowerPoint before you can export the picture. Simply press Ctrl-A again to select everything, then CTRL-G to Group the images. Now you can right-click the group and use Save as Picture to export them as a single image you can use anywhere. Again, a before and after example.
But getting back to the other effects you noticed before, there’s a lot of fun to be had here. Again, with the Background image selected, try out the other effects just to see how things look. Here’s a small gallery of examples to enjoy.
Hope you have as much fun with this as I do, and let me know how well this works for you!
-Ric January 9th, 2011
Photos by Chuck Farnham (Bob) and Ric Bretschneider (ComicCon Slave Girls) not to be reused without permission.
Imported My “Space”
For a short period of time I had a small blog on Microsoft Spaces. Unfortunately Spaces will be going away. But Microsoft and WordPress worked out a deal where the archive of the old Spaces posts can be moved to WordPress accounts.
So the history of this blog just got inflated, an influx of stuff written mostly for family and friends.
Enjoy, or ignore. But I figured I should explain how all those old entries got here…
The Garr Box…
To be honest, I’m having a little trouble getting to the point where I write every day. But I’m lucky, I have inspiring friends who help me get past this without even trying. Today is Garr Reynold’s turn.
It’s Wednesday night, and I return home to another package from Amazon on the doorstep. Monday night it was Nancy Duarte’s Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences
In Monday’s post, I joked about resisting the urge to do an “unboxing video.” Unboxing videos are common in electronics reviews. The reviewer simply records with video as he opens the package and examines the pieces as they come out. It’s just about anticipating use rather than talking about their experiences, because really there haven’t been any experiences yet. They’re kind of silly, and yet compelling, but you just don’t do them for books and DVDs. And certainly not for a…
Oh well, the urge tonight was too strong. The package was Garr Reynolds’s The Presentation Zen Way: Video Lessons on Simple Presentation Design and Delivery. I’m a soft touch for cool packaging and knew what to expect here, so I broke out the camera and took pictures along the way.
This is classic Presentation Zen. Just enough but not too much. A beautiful and sparse slip card over a textured cloth box.
Again, very clean with the slip removed. Embossed lettering on the cover. The spine has a silver foil text treatment. This is a hinged box that will look equally good on the shelf or desk.
And now open, we see pencils, a coupon for free photographs, some sticky notes for later storyboarding, and the DVD - video of Garr teaching the Presentation Zen lessons.
Removing the bento style tray exposes a high quality spiral bound notebook...
...full of potential. All lined up with storyboarding guides, ready to help turn your next presentation into an epic experience.
Events like this make it easy to get back into writing about design goodness and presentation technique. Thanks Garr!
The Walking Dead…
Just in time for Halloween...
AMC just released a new bit of advertising for the October 31st release of their “The Walking Dead” series. That’s it over there on the left. The series is based on a comic by the brilliant Robert Kirkman. The stark black and white art style and Kirkman’s brilliant character development over 75 issues has made it an acclaimed comic epic for some time now. The quality and consistency of this book is amazing, so AMC has their work cut out for them to provide a similar television experience.
And it’s about zombies, did I mention that?
The trailer released this summer is quite graphic, not for the faint of heart. Still, if you like such things… awesome.
Resonate!
UPS just rang the doorbell.
Package from Amazon on the doorstep.
Resist the urge to grab a video camera and do an “unboxing” video. (Yes, I can sometimes control the truly dorky impulses).
And is it? YES! Nancy’s new book has arrived!
Resonate is in the house.
Nancy Duarte's new book is ready for consumption...
Congratulations Nancy! Can’t wait to get started. And now, I don’t have to!
Oh, where to start…
That’s the problem for me. I get so many “good” ideas, they all violently compete for my attention, I have trouble dealing with the conflict so I go off and do something totally unrelated. In short, it’s easy to come up with posts I want to write, hard to pick one. Yeah, so unique.
Creating your Mad Men icon, another escape from actually writing.
Lately I’ve taken to simply starting one-line drafts of ideas for posts, some on presenting, a few on design. And now, with a technique that borders on inspirational laziness, I have a half-dozen or so I think are ripe so I’m asking if there’s any particular interest in reading a specific one of these. So here they are:
- The Microsoft Secrets Post – Now that I don’t work for Microsoft any more, what can I really tell you about PowerPoint? Honestly, if you’ve ever heard me do a late-night guru session this is likely more of the same, less legally actionable than it sounds.
- That’s Not Presenting – This is a list of presenting “impulses” and which ones to avoid.
- The Unsung Grid – One of the most obscure bits of help you can get, and perhaps most meaningful.
- It’s not your slides… – So many things go wrong outside of slide composition.
- Undoing PowerPoint Defaults – Sure, the defaults are there for a reason, but that doesn’t mean they’re right.
- You’re holding it wrong – The Steve Jobs defense of the iPhone 4 implies so much about justifying bad design…
- The Classic PowerPoint Questions – How many slides? How many bullets? How to write good bullets? Yeah, there’s still a role for bullets.
- Countdown… – A suggested time-line: from assignment to presentation, and beyond!
So my imaginary reader, do any of these “resonate” with you? Let me know, I’m feeling some writing coming on… or is that the sore throat?
Why does this appeal to me so?
I recently got a link to a page that advertised an updated Commodore PC. Amazing PC stats with a nostalgic nod to our wasted youth. No joystick, no Donkey Kong (or similar knock-off) in sight, yet the memories rush to the surface, unbidden, yet very welcome.
However, a few moments investigation proved that I was mistaken. The original game system was just the inspiration for a series of new PCs, the picture on the page there to evoke that nostalgic blush. 
Sure the new models are pretty, but they’re not really what I got excited about. I wished the maker had fabricated the original plastics, the original shape and feel of the old computer, and pumped it full of current high-tech goodness. Then I could simply tote it home and hook it up to a monitor out of Brazil and bask in geeky glory.
Why am I so attracted to this type of product? Is there really such a mystery? The cutting edge and the nostalgic glow combine into something wonderful. It does recapture the original magic that, to me at least, was the promise of technology.
And similarly, my new iPad yearns for a keyboard. And now it yearns for this keyboard. I give you the ultimate in the retro realm. Sure, a tad more expensive than the Apple provided solution, but so many points for flat-out cool.
Want to show off your presentation design skills?
Every year, Rick Altman throws a party disguised as a conference. This year the conference is called the Presentation Summit, and he’s holding it on October 17th-20th at the Catamaran Resort Hotel. That’s just two blocks from the Pacific Ocean in San Diego, on a private bay side setting.
The attendees are all there to learn about how to make better presentations. They also make great contacts within the industry, have a couple of fun days learning cool techniques and tools, and generally have a great time. Oh yeah, there’s usually an open bar, a game show, a late-night rap session, and occasionally people go into the pool fully dressed. But they do come away from this unique experience armed to create and give better presentations.
And Rick wants you to join this year’s festivities for free.
All you have to do is produce a great presentation design for use by the conference presenters. The winner gets free attendance. The details are here: http://www.betterppt.com/summit/design-contest. Want to get a sense of what we’re talking about here? Check out the previous years winners: http://www.betterppt.com/summit/design-contest/past-winners.
So what are you waiting for?
Here’s another link just for fun: http://www.betterppt.com/summit/video/
-Ric
An ending leads.
Forgive me if you’ve heard this one before: I honestly never meant to stay this long.
In 1992 I was working for a start-up that was beginning the slow burn into oblivion. I had a great job there, designing a cross-platform time and task management tool that would take advantage of networking and manipulation of graphic metaphors, all cutting edge stuff at the time…. OK, that’s as far as I’m going on the geek speak. Cutting to the chase, this was the second company in a row that I’d worked for where the project I’d poured my soul into was squashed by a Microsoft product of what I considered to be inferior quality. I can prove that scientifically, but we don’t have the time at the moment.
So when the head hunter called me up and said there were people at Microsoft who knew me and wanted me to come in for an interview, I wanted nothing to do with it. He persisted, eventually convincing me saying “they do a terrifically hard interview, it will be a great way to get ready for the next set of interviews for the job you do want.”
So I went. I had some very pleasant conversations with smart people who were too nice and human to possibly have worked for Microsoft. Turns out that was kind of true, many of them had worked for a company that had been bought by Microsoft, which was why the job was in Palo Alto, CA instead of Redmond, WA. It was an interesting day and at the end of it I had a good time but I was relieved it was over.
And then the bastards offered me the job.
I didn’t take the job for three months. I went back in and interviewed them as to why they thought I was a good fit. Still not convinced, I discussed with friends. Most of my Apple friends at the time disowned me on the spot. Sigh. However, my mentor had a different point of view. And this was the man who taught me to drink dark beers so he already had my respect and admiration. He was simple, direct, and practical: “If you were a military general, given the opportunity to go and train with the enemy for a year, wouldn’t you go just to learn all their secrets?” He had a point. It made a lot of sense. And I figured I could do a year there, and then move on to a more meaningful job.
That was over 17 years ago.
Since then I’ve been working on creating new features in the PowerPoint program in one aspect or another. You’ve no doubt heard of PowerPoint, the program is notorious for destroying communication, confusing and misrepresenting facts, figures, logic, and basically obscuring truth. Those are all true statements in the same way that we can blame flowers for opium, newspapers for ransom notes, or milk cartons for missing kids. The prominence to which PowerPoint has risen makes it a large target for those trying to make a name for themselves. But most reasonable people already know this so I won’t take up your time defending the obvious.
When I started working on the program a the few average users we had would make a presentation a month. That’s one document, every thirty days, or less. The team worked under an easy to understand rule: our customers didn’t have time to relearn the product each month, so things had to be kept simple. More simple than Microsoft Word or Excel to be sure. That was a challenge, but very rewarding as customers would repeatedly tell us jus how well we had accomplished that task. They were using PowerPoint for more and more complex communications, and they were successful.
That customer impact and feedback made it so easy to stay at Microsoft, so satisfying to stay on that team and application. So fast to chew through 17 years…
So now I’m sitting here wondering how to end this post. It’s really not an end, it’s another beginning. Perhaps the best way to do this is to simply share with you most of the mail I sent the PowerPoint team. Slightly edited, here you go:
———-
Friday, May 21, 2010
To: PowerPoint-All
Subject: Hello, I must be going
Hello, I must be going. – Groucho Marx
The impulse in writing a truly fine good-bye letter is to sum up the experience in total, such that it can be both a memorial to the time spent and a lesson left behind. Of course, such writing has a tendency to be self-absorbed and potentially boring. So, exercising incredible self-control, I’ll try to get this down without attempting to be legendary in my prose.
When I tell people I’ve spent the last 17 years of my life working on PowerPoint, around nine releases of the product, I typically get one of two responses.
One reaction goes something like it must have been an incredible experience to be involved the development of program that went from obscurity to worldwide notoriety, and to have been involved with it over such a long period of time. Of course, this is quite true. It has been an amazing experience. I’ve been fortunate to work with an astounding array of people. I’ve been able to develop and exercise new skills and work with new technologies. And when I meet people, I can tell them about our product with real pride.
The other reaction to my working on PowerPoint for 17 years is a little trickier. How could you let yourself stay in one area, much less work for one company, for so long? That’s simply not how things work in the Valley. There’s so much out there to explore. This is harder to refute, as my reaction is more emotional than practical. Honestly, it’s simply been a joy to be associated with the product, to meet and understand the customers, to work diligently on solving their problems, and to work with a team so similarly motivated.
Recently I started thinking about the time span in general; 17 years. A standard K-12 education plus 4 years of college lasts 17 years. After living with their parents for 17 years, many 18-year olds find a way to move out of the house, get off on their own. And, after 17 years, the national tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera will end its national tour this very November.
OK, that last one is a bit of a stretch, but it does get you thinking about Act II.
Act II for me will begin with my last day at Microsoft, May 28th. Those of you who know me well already know of my blogging, podcasting, Pecha Kucha nights, other social networking, and these activities will continue. And I don’t expect my love of presenting and presentation software to wane at all. I’ll continue to write and be active in that area for a long time to come. So keep in touch.
What else will I be doing? Well, my wife wanted me just to spend some time cleaning out the garage, selling the good junk on eBay. (Trivia fun fact: I have an eBay feedback profile of over 430 entries, rated 100% positive.) Of course, planning that activity got a bit out of hand and I went a little overboard. Now I’m happy to report that in a few weeks I’ll start working for eBay as a Senior Product Manager working on the user experience in selling on eBay. I’m pretty excited about this, and if you’ve used eBay and have any feedback about it, please let me know!
It’s my hope that my education at Microsoft will serve me, and my future customers, well.
My best wishes to you all!
-Ric
PS. For those not familiar with the Groucho Marx reference, here’s the entire song from the movie Animal Crackers, which is highly recommended. Margaret Dumont sings the italicized part. It’s one of my favorite Groucho bits, and seemed appropriate.
Hello, I must be going.
I cannot stay,
I came to say
I must be going.
I’m glad I came
but just the same
I must be going.
For my sake you must stay,
for if you go away,
you’ll spoil this party
I am throwing.
I’ll stay a week or two,
I’ll stay the summer through,
but I am telling you,
I must be going.
———-
And with that, 17 years and 5 months draws to a close. And Act II begins. This new blog is for me, for writing about my recollections and reactions, to presenting, software, Microsoft, the industry, what I’m learning, what I’m teaching… well you get the picture.
I hope you’ll find it interesting enough to make it a conversation. Please comment as you see fit.
-Ric
Ric Bretschneider 