make pictures look good in PowerPoint 2003 using 256 colors - How.

[Guest]

 

[Ute Simon]

Frieda,

your question is rather short. What do you want to accomplish? Please use
the body of the message for your questions, you can type more text there.

Regarding your problem: 256 colors is GIF-Quality. Use it for comic style
drawings only. For photos, you'll need more color depth to make them look
really good.

You'll have to use an image editing program to enhance your pictures, this
cannot be done in PowerPoint.

Kind regards,
Ute

 

[Guest]

Ute--

Thanks for responding! I have photoshop and am trying to prepare a document
for a customer who asked for Word Documents prepared for 256 color viewing.

The photos I'm using are combined with PowerPoint graphics, so that's why I
asked how to make photos look good with 256 colors. It's a impossible
situation, but I've got to do the best I can given these requirements.

Do you have any suggestions?

 

[Ute Simon]

Thanks for responding! I have photoshop and am trying to prepare a

document
for a customer who asked for Word Documents prepared for 256 color
viewing.

The photos I'm using are combined with PowerPoint graphics, so that's why
I
asked how to make photos look good with 256 colors. It's a impossible
situation, but I've got to do the best I can given these requirements.

Frieda,

I think this is mainly an image editing problem, and I don't know Photoshop
good enough to have any tricks how to retouch your images in it. Instead of
doing a normal file save, you could try to use Photoshop's Export for web,
which gives you more options to optimize the picture.

Kind regards,
Ute

 

[Guest]

Thanks again for your help.

I have tried the "Save for Web" and have tried using color profiles for
Windows, saving in different formats, but still can't get the pictures to
look good. I think it's a problem with the 256 colors I'm using in Photoshop,
somehow aren't compatible with the 256 colors that appear on the screen. The
pictures always come out with dots on them, obviously because one of the
programs is attempting to simulate a color and the best it can do is with a
dotted image.

I thought maybe PowerPoint had some kind of conversion that might work when
importing pictures.

Thanks again for your help. I appreciate your time and effort.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Thanks again for your help.

I have tried the "Save for Web" and have tried using color profiles for
Windows, saving in different formats, but still can't get the pictures to
look good. I think it's a problem with the 256 colors I'm using in Photoshop,
somehow aren't compatible with the 256 colors that appear on the screen. The
pictures always come out with dots on them, obviously because one of the
programs is attempting to simulate a color and the best it can do is with a
dotted image.

That's called "dithering"; it's one way of extending the color range and faking
more colors than you can really create but as you've seen, it doesn't always work
so well. Your image editing software should give you the option not to use it
when you convert to 256 colors. I used to do this a lot in Photoshop and as I
recall the trick was to choose Optimized colors, include Windows colors and NOT
to dither.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Steve . . . I'll try this.

That's called "dithering"; it's one way of extending the color range and faking
more colors than you can really create but as you've seen, it doesn't always work
so well. Your image editing software should give you the option not to use it
when you convert to 256 colors. I used to do this a lot in Photoshop and as I
recall the trick was to choose Optimized colors, include Windows colors and NOT
to dither.


-----------------------------------------
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[Guest]

Hi Steve,

I'm working in Photoshop CS. The mode is set to RGB, 8bits/channel.
The Profile Setting is "Don't color manage".

I use the "Save for Web" feature and Save as a JPG, Progressive, Optimized on.

This produces fantastic looking photos when they are previewed in internet
explorer, when my screen (display) settings are at 256 colors.

I tried to save as PNG-8, Windows turned on, diffusion with 100% dither, and
auto colors. This (according to Lynda Wyman) produced good photos, had the
dots, but looked good. They looked good when viewed with internet explorer.

But, when I put the pictures into PowerPoint 2003, they still come up with
the dots in a different pattern -- like a grid. I think there's something
with how PowerPoint is reading the files I put in. It must be doing something
with the colors.

I even tried to copy, paste special, and tried all of the "Paste Special"
options -- which didn't seem to change the gridding, but did change the size
at which the pictures were pasted -- the BMP setting made it come in a bit
larger (probably because it was reading the pixels and made adjustments for
that).

So, I'm still wondering, what I can do make that grid pattern disappear.

Thanks so much for your help -- I'm posting this again by the way, under a
different heading, just in case you don't know the answer. Thanks again for
the help you've provided.

Frieda

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Hi Steve,

I'm working in Photoshop CS. The mode is set to RGB, 8bits/channel.
The Profile Setting is "Don't color manage".

I use the "Save for Web" feature and Save as a JPG, Progressive, Optimized on.

This produces fantastic looking photos when they are previewed in internet
explorer, when my screen (display) settings are at 256 colors.

To interject a bit: Explorer (or Windows) is doing the color reduction to 256 colors
(ie, 8-bit) then, because JPG is always 24-bit color; also, Explorer is displaying
one image pixel per screen pixel. That's important to keep in mind. Onward:

I tried to save as PNG-8, Windows turned on, diffusion with 100% dither, and
auto colors. This (according to Lynda Wyman) produced good photos, had the
dots, but looked good. They looked good when viewed with internet explorer.

But, when I put the pictures into PowerPoint 2003, they still come up with
the dots in a different pattern -- like a grid. I think there's something
with how PowerPoint is reading the files I put in. It must be doing something
with the colors.

No, but it's not displaying the image pixels one-to-one against screen pixels the way
Explorer is; that's the drawback of dithered images; when you resize them, it can
get pretty nasty looking.

I even tried to copy, paste special, and tried all of the "Paste Special"
options -- which didn't seem to change the gridding, but did change the size
at which the pictures were pasted -- the BMP setting made it come in a bit
larger (probably because it was reading the pixels and made adjustments for
that).

Copy/Paste is a whole different can of worms and not likely to help anything. I
wouldn't go there.

So, I'm still wondering, what I can do make that grid pattern disappear.

You'll need to back up to Photoshop and tell it not to do any dithering.
Give that a shot and let us know how it works out. I don't have PS CS and haven't had
any earlier version installed in quite some time so I don't know the exact
steps/dialog boxes to work through - maybe someone else can help with that.

 

[Guest]

You'll need to back up to Photoshop and tell it not to do any dithering.
Give that a shot and let us know how it works out. I don't have PS CS and
haven't had any earlier version installed in quite some time so I don't know
the exact steps/dialog boxes to work through - maybe someone else can help
with that.

Hi Steve --

I went back to Photoshop. I saved as (see below)

All looked great when previewed in ie, with my display/monitor settings at
256 colors.

When inserted into PowerPoint (using Insert picture, from file) this is what
I got:

No color Profile.jpg -- still had dots/grid
rgb profile.jpg -- still had dots/grid
rgb profile-progressive.jpg -- still had dots/grid
percept-nodither-256.gif -- dots/grid
max-progressive.jpg -- dots/grid

These files still had the dots/grid, but couldn't even handle the white, as
my white backgrounds came in with gray dots

No options.png
options interlaced.png
png8-perceptual-nodither-256.png
windows-png8-nodither-256.png -- this was worse, photos lost even more colors


If dithering was an option, I clicked it off.

The windows color option was only available on png-8 file types. When I
clicked that, my colors went down to 54. I set the colors at 256 -- and only
13 were web-safe.

I'm depressed . . . . .

Feeling hopeless. Thanks for all your effort anyway.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

You'll need to back up to Photoshop and tell it not to do any dithering.
Give that a shot and let us know how it works out. I don't have PS CS and
haven't had any earlier version installed in quite some time so I don't know
the exact steps/dialog boxes to work through - maybe someone else can help
with that.

Before we look at this too closely, did you go back to your *original* image in
Photoshop or did you open one of the images that had already been converted to
256 colors?

You'll want to start with the original image; I'd also skip all the other image
types and go to 8-bit (256 color) PNG or GIF.

Skip JPG completely. It won't be ... can't be ... 256-color.

Hi Steve --

I went back to Photoshop. I saved as (see below)

All looked great when previewed in ie, with my display/monitor settings at
256 colors.

When inserted into PowerPoint (using Insert picture, from file) this is what
I got:

No color Profile.jpg -- still had dots/grid
rgb profile.jpg -- still had dots/grid
rgb profile-progressive.jpg -- still had dots/grid
percept-nodither-256.gif -- dots/grid
max-progressive.jpg -- dots/grid

These files still had the dots/grid, but couldn't even handle the white, as
my white backgrounds came in with gray dots

No options.png
options interlaced.png
png8-perceptual-nodither-256.png
windows-png8-nodither-256.png -- this was worse, photos lost even more colors

If dithering was an option, I clicked it off.

The windows color option was only available on png-8 file types. When I
clicked that, my colors went down to 54. I set the colors at 256 -- and only
13 were web-safe.

I'm depressed . . . . .

Feeling hopeless. Thanks for all your effort anyway.

Hi Steve,

I'm working in Photoshop CS. The mode is set to RGB, 8bits/channel.
The Profile Setting is "Don't color manage".

I use the "Save for Web" feature and Save as a JPG, Progressive, Optimized on.

This produces fantastic looking photos when they are previewed in internet
explorer, when my screen (display) settings are at 256 colors.

To interject a bit: Explorer (or Windows) is doing the color reduction to 256 colors
(ie, 8-bit) then, because JPG is always 24-bit color; also, Explorer is displaying
one image pixel per screen pixel. That's important to keep in mind. Onward:

I tried to save as PNG-8, Windows turned on, diffusion with 100% dither, and
auto colors. This (according to Lynda Wyman) produced good photos, had the
dots, but looked good. They looked good when viewed with internet explorer.

But, when I put the pictures into PowerPoint 2003, they still come up with
the dots in a different pattern -- like a grid. I think there's something
with how PowerPoint is reading the files I put in. It must be doing something
with the colors.

No, but it's not displaying the image pixels one-to-one against screen pixels the way
Explorer is; that's the drawback of dithered images; when you resize them, it can
get pretty nasty looking.

I even tried to copy, paste special, and tried all of the "Paste Special"
options -- which didn't seem to change the gridding, but did change the size
at which the pictures were pasted -- the BMP setting made it come in a bit
larger (probably because it was reading the pixels and made adjustments for
that).

Copy/Paste is a whole different can of worms and not likely to help anything. I
wouldn't go there.

So, I'm still wondering, what I can do make that grid pattern disappear.

You'll need to back up to Photoshop and tell it not to do any dithering.
Give that a shot and let us know how it works out. I don't have PS CS and haven't had
any earlier version installed in quite some time so I don't know the exact
steps/dialog boxes to work through - maybe someone else can help with that.

Thanks so much for your help -- I'm posting this again by the way, under a
different heading, just in case you don't know the answer. Thanks again for
the help you've provided.

Frieda

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