Finding images on the Web

First you should try to find images inside PowerPoint. These are often of good quality and have no copyright.

Go to the insert tab, and choose clip art. Then unselect all items except Photographs.

By limiting your media to photos you will avoid cluttering the options with useless clip art or other items.

Sometimes you can't find what you need inside PowerPoint. So it is time to turn to the Web.

You don't want to use any images that have a copyright without contacting the owner and asking permission.

I must say here that I prefer ixquick as a search engine when just searching for text content.

Many people prefer Google as a search engine, although any search engine can limit returns to images. And it does not pay to be loyal when you are simply trying to find a suitable image. Open several tabs and use multiple search engines at the same time.

Here is what Google results look like:

Notice that you have 18 photos here and to see more you must go to the next page. 

Google did recently add some settings and to get to them click the Show Options at the top left of the screen. Then you will see the options on the left side of the screen as shown below.

By clicking Medium or Large you will get a different subset of pictures.

When you find one you want click on the image and then click "See full size image" and then see if you can copy it to your PowerPoint slide.

Here is what Bing looks like when you do the same search:

Notice on the left you can expand Size, Layout, Color, and Style and look carefully at the scroll bar on the right side of the screen.  You have many more images to look at without having to go to another page.

In the image below I expanded some of these settings to show you the options available:

Again you can change the images shown by clicking Wide or Square or whatever. I prefer wide large images for PowerPoint slides.

The settings at the top right of the screen allow you to show more or less info about each image or to increase or decrease the number of images shown by making them smaller or larger.

And if you click on one of the images you will go to that page (but remain inside the search!) and then you can click Full Size which will open the image in a new page where you can right click the image and copy it.

So I usually turn to Bing first, but won't hesitate to use Google, Ixquick or other search engines to find the right image.

Remember that you can search on any term...it could be a concept as well as a person, place or thing...I found a photo of 2 monkeys with their tails curved into question marks by searching on question mark. I also found 2 swans with necks forming question marks.

So do a quick search for an image and compare Google and Bing and see what you think. And share your observations here.

John