File size for powerpoint presentation?

[dhfreriks]

Hi there,
I am doing a powerpoint program for a local bird club next month using a projector. I have not done this before and I am curious as to what size image files I should be using. The research I have done online suggests 1000 pixels wide and a final file size of under 100kb. The file size seems small and I am just looking for confirmation that when projected, that size of a file is large enough that the photos will look good!

Thanks!
Dave Freriks

www.pbase.com/dhfreriks

[Robert Amoruso]

Dave,

Two things to consider:

Projector resolution in width and height. If you know this, then you resize the file to that size. Typical projector native resolutions are 1024 x 768 pixels. That is what mine is. For horizontal images, I size the width to 1024 pixels and for vertical images to 768 pixels in height. The other dimension falls where it will based on your original crop. Resolution I set for 72 ppi.

To do this in Photoshop, use Image > Image size and set 72 ppi resolution and the width or height as shown above. Be sure to select constrain proportions and for resampling choose Bicubic Sharpener when reducing.

You can also use File > Automate > Fit Image to resize and image in one shot, after reducing the resolution using Image Size, by setting width and height to the size you need. Fit Image does the horizontal vs. vertical resizing automatically.

All this can be put into an action.

Save the image using Save for Web. When you get that screen up, use the flyout (>> on upper right of dialog box) and in the flyout choose Optimize to File Size.

This is the second thing, the actual file size. 100 kb should give you a good looking image. Once you set the KB limit and click OK. Look at the image and see if the IQ has degraded or that the quality is too low (below 50%). If so you may wish to up the file size.

That should get you going.

[dhfreriks]

Thank you Robert! That's what I wanted to hear. I won't have access to the projector until the day of the program and just wanted to make sure the 100kb files were going to be big enough. Dave