Photoshop is a pretty cool design software. However, not only is it expensive, it’s not that easy to use. Sure, every web designer or graphic designer knows the ins-and-outs of Photoshop, but that’s not who this article is geared towards. We’re speaking to the amateur business owners and marketers without graphic design skills.
Putting together email blasts and blogs are simple enough. WYSIWYG software makes it very easy for anyone to use. The trouble most folks run into is when they have to combine images together or combine text with images. This is perfect for Photoshop, but what if you don’t have this software? We have a work-around for you!
All you need to splice images, combine images or add text to images is: Microsoft PowerPoint and the snipping tool. Most PCs come with PowerPoint in them already, and the snipping tool is a free download.
Let’s say that you wanted to combine your logo with another image. In this case I’ll use the TRBO Medical Marketing logo and a stock image of a doctor and patient. For the heck of it I’ll throw in the image of our phone number as well, just so you can see how three images can be combined into one.
First, I make sure that I have all the individual image files handy. If I don’t, I’ll need to snip the appropriate image out. In this case, I’ll start by snipping the phone number out of our website’s header. The image to the right shows the snip of the phone number that I made.
Now, I’ll open up PowerPoint. Then, I’ll simply drag all three images onto the first slide and arrange them appropriately. Make sure you pull down the header and text fields so that they’re not in the way when you snip the image you’ve created. Once you’re happy with the layout, simply snip out the area of the slide with the three images.
The image on your left shows how I was able to combine 3 completely separate images into one. Now, I obviously can’t replicate many of the features of Photoshop, such as shading, gradients and other graphic effects, but this solution isn’t for complex designs. This is just a quick and easy way to combine multiple images and/or text into one image.
If you have any questions about this work-around, or graphic design in general, we’d love to hear from you. Our talented graphic designers can help create completely custom websites, emails templates, social network backgrounds and print collateral. Just leave us a note here, or call TRBO at 877-673-7096 x2.
