Full Bleed vs. Framed Images

Most presentation designers suggest using full bleed images. This term comes from photo printing and means that instead of laying down ink right up to the border, the image goes all the way to the edge of the paper. Full bleed images in presentations take up the entire screen space.

Framed images, in your presentation, are set within the boundaries of your screen, rather than going right up to the edge like a full bleed image. Frames break up our sight lines. Our eyes naturally move around an image rather than fixating on one point. Frames define the area where our eyes will move and break up the natural flow.

Sometimes you may want to have an image that is not full bleed. For example when Steve Jobs presents the next iPhone he does't blow the picture up so that the phone fills the entire screen. We need perspective to deal with it and to understand what's going on. But notice that there are no borders dividing the phone from the rest of the slide. This helps to preserve the flow through the slide.

One good reason to use frames to separate the images in your presentation might be if you're showing a juxtaposition. You want to highlight the difference between the two images, so a frame is helpful in getting the eye to focus on each image as it's own entity.

I'm not against using frames in presentations, but it needs to be done with a purpose.

How do you like to show images? What rules do you occasionally break?

Photo Resources part 5 - Placement

So far this week we've looked at where to find good photos, how to search for them, selecting images with plenty of white-space, and editing images. Now we need to look at how you can place the images in your presentation.

You should almost always use a full-bleed image versus a framed image. Every time our eyes see a border they stop. The border acts as a barrier for our thoughts and causes us to differentiate. In the image on the left we see the image, then separately we see the words, then we may put them all together. The effect is very much like a high school year book with captions for photos.

In the images on the right we perceive the words connected to the image (and the white-space in the image gives plenty of room for the text). The effect is more professional, rather that looking like a high school kid's extra curricular activity it looks like a professional magazine layout.

When placing your image you want to expand the size so that it completely fills the presentation window. As you edit you may need to crop for white space. Notice that in the image on the left the subjects are centered in the frame of the picture (the picture is centered and the text is centered too). On the right, the subjects are off-center in the image to leave room for the text.

Perfectly balanced things make our eyes nervous for some reason. Photographers use the rule of thirds where major features in the photo fall along the lines one third of the way from the top, bottom, or sides and the subject of the image is placed at the intersection of two of those lines. When you crop and place your image, use the rule of thirds to provide a more professional look.

What tips do you have for placing images in a presentation?