How Can I Reduce the Image File Sizes in My PowerPoint Presentations?

Q: “Creating PowerPoint Presentations I use a lot of images. I copy and paste them into PowerPoint. This causes the presentation file size to become rather larger and consequently I often can’t upload it into Blackboard. ….How do I reduce file images in PowerPoint without causing the image to become too blurry?”

I was recently asked this question by a faculty member. Working with images can be tricky. What file format to use. How to save them. Here are a few quick tips on how to reduce the image files sizes, what formats to use, and how not to sacrifice too much quality of the image.

1. A simple way to reduce file size of an image is to reduce the size of the image. Use photo editing software (the GIMP is free and Open Source) to reduce the general size of the image. You can also crop non-essential parts of the photo. ALWAYS reduce an image when resizing, never make an image size larger than the original. You will loose quality in an image and it will be come “fuzzy”. Remember -bigger to smaller.

2. Save in the right file format. JPEG is a good compressed file format for photographs or images that have a wide range of color. PNG is a good compressed file format for images that contain transparency. GIF is a good compressed file format for transparency and very few colors (like a logo). If you are inserting images in a file format such as RAW or TIFF, these files are huge because they contain all the raw data of the image and are not compressed (TIFF can be compressed but nothing compared to a JPEG.

3. Color depth. The more colors you have in an image, the more information it contains, the bigger the file it is. If you do not need a color image, opt for a gray scale or a black and white image instead.

-Angel Brady