Digital Presentations: Some Hints on Preparation and Delivery
by Sally and John Perkins
Digital image presentations have replaced traditional slide film based talks at most conferences and many chapter meetings. The cost, quality, and availability of digital cameras, digital projectors, and digital presentation software are at the point that the advantages of such digital presentations far outweigh the disadvantages.
In principle, digital presentations are quite similar to traditional presentations in terms of content and the skills required preparing and delivering. In general, the audience appreciates a well organized talk consisting of beautiful images and relevant information presented in an entertaining and timely fashion.
In practice, good images are the backbone of any presentation. Digital cameras have improved to the point that the quality of digital images is more than good enough for projection at a meeting or conference. Here are some suggestions for making good use of these images in a digital image presentation.
Plan to present 2 to 3 images per minute.
We have found that for presentations lasting 45 minutes to an hour that an image every 20 to 30 seconds is often enough to keep the presentation moving while still allowing adequate time to verbally present related content.
Six images per minute for a rapid fire ten minute presentation on say the flora of a given area is possible but only practical for someone who has given many digital presentations. Upwards of 180 images in an hour presentation is possible but again only for someone who is experienced in giving digital presentations.
Ninety images is a good upper bound for a first time digital presentation where an hour has been allotted for the presentation and questions.
Timed presentations
Most digital presentation software allows an option to control the time each image is viewed. A software controlled timed presentation is excellent for a conference where keeping on schedule is extremely important. We now use timed controlled presentations for all our talks where we allow ourselves the option of advancing to the next image manually. This allows us to be certain that a given presentation will last no longer than our desired time upper limit.
Repeat an image if more time is required
For conference presentations where being on schedule is of the utmost importance we use a fixed time per image near 20 seconds. If we want any given image to appear longer than this we merely load a copy of the same image, possibly multiple copies, sufficient for the chosen time period. When we give a 2-person talk we often repeat an image as a transition between the speakers.
Place a title at the top left on each image.
One of the major advantages of digital over slide film based presentations is the ease of adding text to images.
Titles should be placed at the top of the image and preferably always in the same general location. We prefer the top left of the image for all our image titles. We find titles using white print and a green background work well for most plant images. Selection of the font size will depend on the size of the room, as well as the projector’s resolution, and it’s always best to err on the larger size.
Titles centered at the bottom of an image are excellent for books, articles, web sites, and small round table presentations but titles on the top are far more visible for a larger audience where the seating is by rows. Titles at the top of an image are much easier for the audience in the back of the room to see.
Avoid software tricks and special effects
In general first time presenters should avoid tricks such as moving, fading, spinning, blinking, or color changing titles. In fact, software tricks are best kept to a minimum until one gains experience doing digital presentations.
Special effects in the hands of experienced presenters can be very useful for making a point or for humor, but, in general, the presenter has to be able to act as the straight man for these effects to work well requiring a sense of timing that most less experienced presenters lack. In fact if overused special effects may have the opposite effect on the audience becoming distracting and non-humorous.
We rarely use such effects in our presentations.
Images titles as lecture notes
We use the titles on the images as a substitute for written lecture notes. Although we keep the titles brief, we incorporate enough information in the title to remind us of why the image is included.
This greatly increases our ability to keep the presentation moving while insuring we cover all of our major talking points.
Images titles as handout
We prepare a written handout that is basically a list of the image titles. Having the titles on the images allows the audience to focus their attention on the images rather than having to refer to the handout.
This also allows us to have the lights turned down lower than would be practical if the audience had to frequently refer to the handout during the presentation. Many less expensive and older digital projectors need a well darkened room.
Image as background to bulleted text
Text based digital slides are easily added to digital presentations. Such slides are useful in the introduction of a presentation or during transition periods in a presentation.
In general, a background image relating to the text being presented greatly enhances the visual effect of such slides.
Collages for transitions
The digital software packaged with most digital cameras allow the easy creation of simple collages as digital images. Collages can be useful as a starting or transition slide in a presentation.
Maps for reference
Web based software supports the creation of maps as digital images. Maps can be can be useful as a starting, reference, or transition slides in a presentation.
Starting presentation with the first digital slide
Map, text, or collage based slides allow the presenter to coordinate the beginning of the talk with the first digital slide. In our opinion, nothing moves a talk forward and gets the audience on board more than the presentation of the first slide and then the transition to the second slide.
Learning to blend the beginning of verbal and visual portions of a presentation is the key to leading the audience on your digital journey.
Prior to presentation review
A big advantage of digital presentations is the ease in reviewing the finalized version. All one needs is to set the computer monitor at the same resolution as the digital projector. Whereas a slide projector is required to review the sequence in its final form costing precious bulb time. Three seconds per slide is usually all that is needed to review the visual portion of the presentation including the quality of the images, the clarity of the titles, and the basic sequence of the digital journey.
We find five to ten seconds of review per slide is needed to convince ourselves that we are ready to talk to the given set of slides. We find that slight modifications to the titles are sometimes required at this point for the mnemonics needed especially for transition slides.
Removing lower quality images
We have learned that removing lower quality images greatly improves the overall presentation. Marginally passable images that are considered essential for the theme are often just not included, which avoids having to apologize for the image quality. Before finalizing a presentation we digitally project the sequence of images. Some images that look fine on a monitor simply do not translate well to the big screen.
Maximizing the real estate
We finalize a presentation by making certain we take full advantage of the resolution of the digital projector. We crop our images to have the same ratio, normally 4 by 3, as the digital projector, thereby allowing the horizontal based images to fill the screen. We reduce the resolution of the images to match the native resolution of the digital projector, often 1024 by 768. We set our laptop to this resolution also.
Presentation from the hard drive
We have found that placing the presentation on the hard drive rather than on a CD or thumb drive reduces the potential for lag time on the transition between slides. Reducing the resolution of images to be no larger than what is supported by the projector also reduces the potential for such delays.
Color variation
One of often sited, disadvantage of digital presentation is the color varies depending on the laptop and the projector. When one is using their own equipment this can be dealt with during the review process but becomes much more of an issue when using provided equipment. It is worthwhile to have someone familiar with color balance and the projector’s menu options on hand for setup. Most frequently there will be too much blue tones resulting from a combination of less expensive digital cameras and video signal of the laptop.
The clicker
Clickers often have a button for closing (terminating) a presentation as well as buttons for advancing forwards and backwards between slides. Unintentional use of the close button can be an issue when using provided equipment.
The camera
A digital camera of more than 3 mega pixels is adequate for producing images good enough for digital projection. Cameras designed to capture the nuances of human skin tone (many inexpensive point and shoots) will require more software to restore the actual color.
The projector
Since image quality and color is more important than sharpness of text, we recommend a DLP projector having a native resolution of at least 1024 by 768.
The software
Personal preference combined with what software you already have loaded on your home computer are the biggest factors in choosing what software to use to prepare a digital presentation. PowerPoint is the default choice of many especially those used to the Microsoft work environment and it is more than adequate. We prefer a combination of the program Picasa for storing, titling, and organizing of the images, JPEGCrop for cropping the images, and Irfanview for finalizing the presentation format.
Our preparation process
We have found that finding the images, titling the images, and ordering the images are the major factors in how long it takes to put a presentation together. Cropping of the images, producing the handouts, and the finalized presentation are only done after the more time consuming steps are completed and reviewed.
We store all our images using Picasa. Picasa supports titling of images as captions. The caption is stored as metadata or data within the data of the image file rather than the title becoming pixels in the image. In our work, once the title is entered as a caption within the image information, we can choose to show the image without or without the caption since its stored in a different part of the file than the actual pixel information. The caption can be changed without affecting the image pixel information.
Picasa supports searching on the file name of the images as well as the caption and sorting by date of storage. This is invaluable in locating images.
Picasa supports organizing images in virtual folders. In other words the images can be added and organized into a named folder without physically moving the images on the hard drive. Moreover, once in a virtual folder, the images in that folder can be reordered using drag and drop. The caption for an image in the virtual folder can be added or modified.
Picasa supports viewing as a slide show the images stored in a virtual folder. This slide show can be viewed with or without titles.
Picasa allows exporting this slideshow as a text file of captions and associated images that can be imported and used by Irfanview.
Picasa supports quick fixing the quality of image. Picasa supports creating simple collages.
Irfanview, also, supports viewing the images as a slide show. Using Irfanview we can generate a timed slideshow executable that can run without requiring any other software. Irfanview supports the use of the caption stored in an image to be placed in the upper left hand corner of each image using a green background and white letters. Options for location, font, font size, color of text and different backgrounds are available.
Before finalizing the presentation as an executable using Irfanview we crop the images using a batch edit tool such as JPEGCrop or individually with the newer version of Picasa and resize the images using Irfanview.
We review the finalized presentation using a laptop and a digital projector and make any final modifications to the images or titles using Irfanview.
We finalize the handout by editing the file of titles using Word.
Worth mentioning is everything we do to the images inside Picasa is work to improve the quality of our set of stored images. This work is a permanent part of our image collection and useful in creating future presentations.
On the other hand, the work we do inside Irfanview is for the sole purpose of finalizing the given presentation.
Conclusion
Although there are as many ways to prepare and give a good presentation as there are presenters, we have found the hints presented above useful in improving the quality of our digital image presentations.
