Image | Glenn Ward

Saving down graphics from powerpoint as a picture, png or jpg

I didn’t realise that this was an unknown to many but often there is a need to pull things out of PowerPoint for alternative uses rather than put them in. This is often the case for me when produce video reports where the findings have been visualised in PowerPoint. So, it’s as simple as this, File > Save As > under the naming form fill change the drop down to png or jpg and hit save, you will then be prompted current slide or every slide, choose every slide and each slide in he deck will be saved as a separate picture or image.

If you just require an element if the slide you can right click and save as image in much the same way.

Top tip,
If your output proposed use is a higher quality than the resolution of the ppt you can often scale up your deck to A3, any vector graphics will be re sized and the quality of the output increased. Go, File > Page Setup and adjust the page accordingly.

Adobe Premiere Pro – Pause video in the timeline by creating a still frame

Unfortunately there is no means to simply pause a video on the first or last frame to get that still to motion effect you often see when multiple interviews are shown on screen at once.

I have found the simplest way to achieve this in Adobe Premiere Pro is to create stills by exporting a tiff then re importing it into you projects portfolio.

Begin by aligning and resizing your clips on the timeline (see how to scale video here) in the order you wish them to appear. At this stage you will see black before and after the clip. Place the playhead on the first frame of the video you would like to begin on a paused / still frame. Choose File > Export and select tiff, be sure on the next drop down to export the tiff in the aspect ratio you are working in. It will make lining the image up a lot easier later. Export as usual using Adobe Media Encoder to the correct folder in your project folder (see setting up a project here) import the file back into your project and place it on the timeline prior to your clip. Adjust the length and play through to see the effect. If you need to scale the tiff do so to complete a smooth still frame to motion effect.

Adobe Premiere Pro – Panning, scrolling and scale images over time

It is often necessary to scale and move the images you have brought into your timeline. Often you will want to create a slow zoom in, zoom out or pan across an image to add a little movement to your video and have it look a little less like a slide show.

If you familiar with Adobe After Effects you will find this very easy as it’s a process of adding keyframes at start and end points to inform Premiere as to where motion should begin and end.

Start by creating an image in photo with dimensions (Understanding dimensions) bigger than your frame dimensions. Bring it into Premiere and drag it down to the time line. You will see the image appear in the window on the right.

Now place your playhead where you would like the animation to begin and then with the clip selected click on the effects tab in the first preview panel.

You will now see a mini timeline appear for your particular clip. Locate the symbol that looks like a stopwatch, next to the scale controller, click and you will see a keyframe appear on the timeline. Now move the playhead to your proposed endpoint either on the main line or the mini one, again hit the keyframe button and you will see another black diamond appear, signifying the end of the motion. Note that as you move the playhead away from this diamond it is no longer black. You must have the playhead directly on the frame in order to effect it, otherwise another keyframe will be generated. With the playhead properly aligned change the scale numbers to 80 percent. Now drag the playhead back in the main timeline and play your video, you should see a slow zoom out.

Change the scale to more than 100 percent for a zoom in. Exactly the same theory applies to motion the only difference being that you must change the x and y axis in order to create a pan.

It is possible to place as many keyframes as you like on the timeline in order to create more complex movement.