Re: Help! Cartoons for PowerPoint presentation (long)

Subject: Re: Help! Cartoons for PowerPoint presentation (long)
From: Beth Mason <beth -dot- mason -at- MANTECH -dot- COM>
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 09:06:49 -0400

Hi Nancy,
It doesn't look like you've had much response to your plea (unless you've had private responses), so I give my 2 cents' worth.

I can't answer all your questions, but I do know that you will want the cartoonist to use bold, thick strokes, because when you project a presentation using an LCD projector, everything tends to look fairly washed-out and faded. I'm not sure how you can convey the line width to someone working strictly on paper--but I would say the thicker, the better (short of using a big chunky magic marker).

If the cartoons are going to be colored, you might want to do some tests yourself to see which colors show up best using the projector--there are rules about which colors don't translate well, but I have forgotten them. You might be able to find out something on the net. But you don't want the artist to color everything in, say, shades of blue and then realize at the last minute that blue doesn't project.

Also, you will want to save the pictures in JPEG format at a fairly compressed rate. You may have to try it a few ways to strike a good balance between file size and image quality. If you save it as a BMP, you can bet the picture files will be humongous and will slow down your presentation significantly, especially if you don't have a super-fast PC. The slowing down will be even worse if there's animation and transition effects (which, of course, you will want to use to spice up your presentation. :-) If I were you, I would scan the images at as high a resolution as I could and save it as a high resolution TIF or GIF (which will be huge) and then use that file to save as different formats for your tests to find the optimum compression rate. Even simple programs like MS Photo Editor will let you play with the formats and compression rates.

I know this doesn't answer all your questions, but I hope it helps.

Beth


><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><>
Beth Champion Mason
Senior Technical Writer/Editor
ManTech Systems Solutions Corp.
(757) 938-9377

>>> "Allison, Nancy" <Nancy -dot- Allison -at- TFN -dot- COM> 07/14 3:29 PM >>>
I'm going to give a talk in August at a conference. To add a little interest
and humor, I've hired an artist to draw some topical cartoons.

I've never done this before. I need to advise the artist on what size the
originals should be, what line width, etc. I will be scanning the art into
the computer -- the artist does not have a computer and will be working on
paper. I've already said that the cartoons need to be simple -- no fine
lines or lots of little details. But I'm sure there's more practical info I
can give her.

My presentation will be in a PowerPoint file, which will be shown on a
screen at the head of the room (typical conference presentation).
<snip>


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