The tips below should help you prepare good quality media for your Adobe Presenter presentations. Use this checklist as a guide for each presentation.
Images
- Use JPEGs for images with lots of colors and subtle color shifts (like gradations).
- Save images at 72 or 96 dpi, RGB mode. In PowerPoint (PC), right click on an embedded image to compress it at 96 dpi.
- When saving JPEGs, choose at least medium compression quality.
- Scaling: Reducing the physical size of the image does not reduce file size. Optimize the image by changing the file size before exporting it as JPEG.
Bottom line: keep size of image files to 256 KB or less.
Audio
Technical tips
- Stereo or mono? Record in stereo, save in mono for the web. This reduces the file size by half.
- Sample Frequency? 22.05 kHz (web quality), 44.1 kHz (CD quality)
- 8 or 16 bit? 8 bit (web quality)
Recording tips
- Do not record audio when you are tired or ill.
- Record in a quiet location with no background noise.
- Limit recording to no more than 2 minutes of audio per slide.
- Explain the slide, do not read it.
- Coach yourself to sound conversational and interested in what you are saying.
- Emotional content in your voice is especially important. Think of a face: What emotions are you conveying in your voice?
- Use the word “you” frequently. You are talking and explaining to one person on the other end of a computer in cyberspace.
- Make the presentation active: Think of ways to engage the listener.
Bottom line: record interesting audio that talks to ‘you.’
Video
- For Adobe Presenter presentations, video clips must be converted to .swf or .flv files first.
- Use video clips sparingly or link to longer video clips on another site.
- Use short clips: less than 30 seconds.
- Make clip dimensions 320 x 240 dpi or less.