I love the photo editing capabilities baked right into Microsoft Office 2010. It used to take so long to tweak a picture to match its surroundings, usually involving a costly trip into a photo editing package like Adobe Photoshop, but with Microsoft Office 2010 powerful photo editing tools are included within Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Publisher.
The image below shows a quick sample that took me around 40 seconds to create, starting from the original picture in the top left. How long would that have taken me in the olden days?
Frankly, I find it mind-boggling to have this much power built into these applications, and I think you will too.
There are three major tools that you’ll enjoy using: Corrections, Color, and Artistic Effects. The simplest way to demonstrate what they can do is with some screenshots:
And don’t forget to also try out the Options at the bottom of each of these ribbon menus. You can adjust most effects to precisely meet your requirements, with live previews showing how your image will change before you commit to the change. And, by combining Correction, Color and Artistic Effects you can create even more extraordinary images. Don’t worry though, the Reset Picture button is only ever a mouse-click away so if you go a bit over the top with your image effects you can always start afresh.
Another ace new feature from the Microsoft Office 2010 team, thanks!