Oct 10, 2013

Simple cure for distorted images: Lock aspect ratio

Look carefully at these two images.


The logo and the face both are not right. They are not in their original proportion. The logo has been squeezed from top & bottom. The face has been squeezed from the sides (right and left).

When you are re-sizing images on your slide, such errors can happen. One absolutely simple way to avoid such a problem is to lock the aspect ratio of an image. Aspect ratio is the ratio between height and width of an image. If the original ratio is 2:1 and you lock it. Even when you shrink it or enlarge it, the ratio will not change. Hence, the image will not go out of proportion.

Before re-sizing any image, you should lock the aspect ratio. In MS PowerPoint 2010, right click on the image -> Format Picture -> Size -> check the Lock aspect ratio box -> Close. We are done.

2 comments :

  1. Hi Vivek. This is a very good tip, and definitely help to avoid the distorted images. However, something is really frustrating is to copy and paste a PowerPoint slide from 4:3 standard aspect ratio into a PowerPoint presentation with other page size like the widescreen 16:9 - Even if the lock aspect ratio is checked, the image is distorted :(

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