Saving Slide as a Bitmap. Bad resolution.. grainy image

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bryan Ray
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Bryan Ray

Hello,

I'm saving a slide as a bitmap and the resulting file
look very grainy (mainly the text).
The problem is the same when I save as a gif also.

Using PP XP and WinXP with flat panel monitor.
Previously used Win2K (same monitor) and did not have the
problem. Only after upgrade to Win XP Pro.

I've tried changing a few settings in the page setup, but
this did only increased the size (width and height) of
the output bmp file.



Any suggestions?

Thanks
Bryan
 
Both .bmp and .gif images are low resolution formats. If saving slides as
images from PowerPoint I would recommend saving images in the .jpg format.

Additionally you may want to look at these two add-ins that give you much
greater control over your exported images (I generally export mine as
1600x1200 .jpgs)
1. http://corpimaging.com/PowerTools/pt-im-ex.htm
2. http://www.rdpslides.com/pptools/FAQ00005.htm

--
Best Regards,
Troy Chollar
==============================
"troy at TLCCreative dot com"
TLC Creative Services, inc.
www.tlccreative.com
==============================
 
I am not sure of what software resources are available to
you but this works with any application that you can print
from:

Print the file as an Adobe PDF (requires Adobe Acrobat)
adjusting the resolution as required. Open the PDF in
Adobe Photoshop and save as to just about any raster file
format and resolution imaginable.

Cole
 
Both .bmp and .gif images are low resolution formats.
Click to expand...

Care to place a small side bet on that, sir? ;-)
BMPs can be quite highrez and contain 24-bit color.
 
Hello,

I'm saving a slide as a bitmap and the resulting file
look very grainy (mainly the text).
The problem is the same when I save as a gif also.
Click to expand...

Do you mean "bitmap" as in Windows BMP format?
GIF ... That doesn't surprise me; GIF is limited to 256 colors, so
PowerPoint has to "dither" to fake the in-between colors. This can
sometimes produce a result that looks exactly as you described it:
grainy.

But with other export formats ... Hmm. Some versions of PPT have a bug
that causes them to export everything as though it were 8-bit color
(ie, 256-color, GIF-type color) if there's an image set as background.

If you've got one of those, try removing it and exporting to PNG as a
test.

The suggestions here will help you get higher resolution, in case it's
rez and not limited colors that's the problem:

Improve PowerPoint's GIF, BMP, PNG, JPG export resolution
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00052.htm

You might also want to try the demo of our Image Export addin:
http://get.pptools.com

Image Export does a bit of magic to help prevent the dithered color
problem even when you've got a background image set.
 
Bryan, I'm with Cole on this one -- when I need max fidelity, I print to
Acrobat and then work with the PDF file. My swiss army knife of choice is
CorelDRAW, as it is uncommonly adept at importing PDF files and then
allowing me to edit and export to any format. You just need to make sure
that you are not using an Acrobat setting that introduces compression and
image loss during the PDF process. I use the Press Ready setting to insure
against that.
 
[CRITICAL UPDATE - Anyone using Office 2003 should install the critical
update as soon as possible. From PowerPoint, choose "Help -> Check for
Updates".]

Hello,

PowerPoint doesn't provide the kind of control that you are looking for
when it comes to controlling the resolution at which slides (and
selections) are exported as bitmaps. There are several workarounds such as
proportionally making the slide area larger (e.g. 20"x15" instead of
10"x7.5") since that doesn't affect slide show at all and only marginally
affects printing (since PowerPoint will automatically scale down the size
of the slide to fit if slide area is larger than print area for selected
printer and paper size). NOTE: In PowerPoint 2003, the maximum resolution
of slides exported as bitmaps is 3072x3072

If you (or anyone else reading this message) think that it is important to
have more control over the quality/resolution at which slides are exported
as bitmaps (without having to resort to workarounds, add-ins or VBA), don't
forget to send your feedback (in YOUR OWN WORDS, please) to Microsoft at:

http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp

As with all product suggestions, it's important that you not just state
your wish but also WHY it is important to you that your product suggestion
be implemented by Microsoft. Microsoft receives thousands of product
suggestions every day and we read each one but, in any given product
development cycle, there are only sufficient resources to address the ones
that are most important to our customers so take the extra time to state
your case as clearly and completely as possible.

IMPORTANT: Each submission should be a single suggestion (not a list of
suggestions).

John Langhans
Microsoft Corporation
Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows

For FAQ's, highlights and top issues, visit the Microsoft PowerPoint
support center at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=ppt
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbhowto

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm
 
PowerPoint doesn't provide the kind of control that you are looking for
when it comes to controlling the resolution at which slides (and
selections) are exported as bitmaps.
Click to expand...

Thing is, it's not just a resolution issue. In some cases PowerPoint will
export e.g. PNGs as 1-bit or 8-bit images. Since it obviously can't
anti-alias text in 1-bit images and makes no attempt to in 8-bit images, the
text and some other graphics ends up looking like the dog's breakfast on the
day after.

Repro: PowerPoint 2003, all updates applied, running in Win2000 in this
case. Same behavior on PPT2000/XP Home, fwiw. Start a new Blank
presentation, type some text into the title; File, Save As and save to PNG.

Open it in an image editing app that can open PNGs and tell you something
about color depth (Picture Manager won't, Paint can't, Photo Editor will but
gets the color depth wrong - reports 8-bit grayscale when it's really
bi-tone, but that's close enough. Point is, it *should* be 24-bit color and
it isn't)

Depending on the output resolution and the size of the time, it may also
bitmap the fonts, but that's another bug. ;-)
 
[CRITICAL UPDATE - Anyone using Office 2003 should install the critical
update as soon as possible. From PowerPoint, choose "Help -> Check for
Updates".]

Hi Steve,

If you have sample presentations and corresponding images created when
exporting slides as *.PNG from PowerPoint 2003 which are not at 24-bit
color, don't forget to submit a bug report with the samples through the
usual MVP channels.

John Langhans
Microsoft Corporation
Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows

For FAQ's, highlights and top issues, visit the Microsoft PowerPoint
support center at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=ppt
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbhowto

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm
 
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