21.7.15

Working with Slide Styles

Slide Styles are pre-made animations and effects, that can be applied to any of your slides with just the press of a button, making your shows more eye catching, more attractive, and unique.

It is important to understand that by applying a style to one of your slides, all the effects that were created by the style maker, will be instantly applied to your pictures in that slide. These effects include: Motion effects (how the pictures pan,zoom, tilt and rotate), Adjustments (transparency, colorizing, blur, etc), Masks, Frames, Backgrounds to be used  - for short, everything that the style maker created for your slide.
Using the pre-made effects gives you a great start in your show. You may of course make changes after the style has been applied, and adapt the style to your own pictures and your own taste.

There are two ways of applying styles to your slides:
a. Insert your pictures in the slide, and apply the style of your choice.
b. Insert a blank slide in your show, apply the style to it, and insert your pictures only afterwards.

Both ways are legitimate and effective.
I prefer the second method (inserting the pictures after applying the style) because it gives me more control on the way my pictures will be shown in the slide. This is also the preferred method  when applying styles that are rich in graphic effects, and include frames, ornaments, backgrounds, and/or video effects.
This is the method that I will show you here, in this tutorial.

APPLY THE STYLE, THEN ADD YOUR PICTURES

Right Click in your slide list to insert a blank slide. You can click in the exact spot where you want to insert a new slide, or on an empty spot.


Select your newly created blank slide and then click on Edit Slide.


This will bring up the menus for selecting slide styles. Choose the slide style that you like and hit "Apply Style"

In your preview window, you will be able to  see the working style,  displaying  all the graphics and motions that this style includes, but there will be no pictures in it. The pictures are replaced by  gray boxes - place holders.

Read the description of the style and the times that are recommended for your slide.
Change the times of your newly created slide accordingly.

Now,  let's insert the pictures.
Notice how the style is built and how the layers are named.
Some of the layers are already populated by graphic files, such as "frame", mask, background, decoration, etc... The other layers , named "image" or "photo" are empty. This is where you should insert your own pictures.  Pay attention to the way images are placed in the slide, and try to choose your pictures accordingly. If a person is looking to the right, then that picture is more suited to be placed on the left of your slide, as if looking towards the center of the screen.

Select the layer where you want your picture to be inserted, by placing the mouse on it.
The layer will become marked (colored).
Now, drag (with the mouse) the picture that you want to insert there.
Notice that if the style requires to duplicate that image (for graphic purposes), your picture will automatically get duplicated too. You will not have to insert  your picture more than once.






Notice also the blue call out icon next to some of the layers. That icon means that there is some additional information for you to read about that layer.
Follow the same procedure for all the pictures in the slide.
When you are done, watch your slide.
It will have all your pictures inside, all the graphics provided by the style, as well as, all its motions and effects.


Perhaps this method is a bit more time consuming than the first method where you insert pictures and then apply the style automatically. But I can assure you that you will be much happier when you will have control on what picture goes where, and you will also understand the "why" behind it.


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