How to change the background of a picture in powerpoint

Personalize your next PowerPoint presentation with one of your photos

Updated on February 14, 2021

Table of Contents Show

Personalize your next PowerPoint presentation with one of your photos
What to Know
Add and Format a Background Image
Choose the Background Picture Carefully
Things You'll Need
References
About this article
Did this article help you?
How do I change the background color of a Picture in PowerPoint?
How do you change the background of an object in PowerPoint?
How do you remove the background of a Picture in PowerPoint?
How do I change the background of a Picture in slides?

What to Know

Design > Format Background > Picture or texture fill and select the desired image.
Move the transparency slider to set how transparent you want the image to be.

This article explains how to use any image as the background for one or more slides in your PowerPoint presentation. Instructions apply to PowerPoint 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, and PowerPoint for Microsoft 365.

Add and Format a Background Image

To add a picture as the background image for a PowerPoint slide:

Open the PowerPoint presentation and go to the slide where you want to add a background image. If you want to add it to all of your slides, add it to any slide.
Select Design > Format Background. Or, right-click on the slide and select Format Background. The Format Background pane opens.
Select Picture or texture fill.
Select File to insert a picture from your computer or network drive, select Clipboard to insert a picture you copied, or select Online (or Clip Art in PowerPoint 2010)to search for a picture online.
Locate the picture you want to use and select Insert.
Set the transparency level for the picture using the Transparency slider.
Choose Reset Background to remove the photo so you can start over, Close to apply the picture as the background to one slide, or Apply to All to apply the picture as the background to all the slides in the presentation.

To remove the background image, open the Format Background pane and choose Solid Fill or another option.

Choose the Background Picture Carefully

By default, the picture you choose for the background of your slide is stretched to fit the slide. To avoid distortion, choose a horizontal format picture and one with high resolution.

A picture with high resolution appears crisp and clear, while a picture with low resolution appears blurry when it is enlarged and stretched to fit the slide. Stretching the picture can result in a distorted image.

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You may have a really nice photo of someone with a very mundane background. If the person contrasts with the background, you may be able to replace the background relatively easily using PowerPoint from the Microsoft Office 2010 Package. If the person and background are similar in color, this becomes more challenging, but may still be practical to do. The most difficult challenge may be getting the person's hair to look good.

1
Start PowerPoint.
2
Click on Insert -> Picture -> The Picture You Want To Edit.
3
Click on Format -> Picture -> Remove Background.
4
Adjust the frame around the picture for a tight crop around the areas you want to keep. Purple areas are to be removed. Other areas are to be kept.
5

If the automation missed areas you want to keep, click on "Mark Areas To Keep." Drag the "pencil marker" to the first "missed area." Press down on the left "mouse click" and drag the "pencil marker" over the first area you wish to keep that was missed. PowerPoint will make adjustments to the photo. As a result of these adjustments, you may make additional edits.
- Repeat as needed for other areas.
6
If there are areas you do not wish to keep, click on "Mark Areas To Remove." Drag the "pencil marker" to the first area to remove. Press down on the left "mouse click" and drag the "pencil marker" over the first area you wish to keep that was missed. PowerPoint will make adjustments to the photo. As a result of these adjustments, you may make additional edits.
- Repeat this step and the previous step as needed.
7
Enlarge the image to "fine tune" your photo.
8
Click on Keep Changes.
9
Save Your PowerPoint File.
10
Change the background color of the PowerPoint page to blue and check your image against the blue background. You may see an additional change to make with the different background.
11
Save Your PowerPoint File.
12
Click on the Image with your "right mouse key." Click on "Save As Picture." Supply file name and folder to place photo in. You will save a PNG Image with no background.
13

Exit PowerPoint and Reenter and open your file. Sometimes the save process does not work perfectly and you may need to re-edit parts of the image and save both the PowerPoint and the PNG file.
14
Done. You now have a PNG file of your image with no background.

1
Make a collage. If you want to make a collage you may repeat the above steps as many times as desired with each image to include in your collage.
- Hint: Use a separate PowerPoint file for each image. It will be much easier to work with just one image per file.
2
Add captions, etc. Load all of your images into a new PowerPoint file with the background you desire along with your new background photo (or you may simply use a blue, green, black or other desired color as your background). You may also add WordArt to your photo for Captions, etc.
3
Save the new PowerPoint file.
4
Save the finished product. Once you have a photo you like, you may print it or save it as a .jpg photo. JPG photos may be uploaded to Facebook, emailed, printed at your local pharmacy, etc.

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Note: Removing backgrounds from images takes anywhere from five minutes to about half an hour per image depending upon how well the image contrasts with the background and how much detail there is in the image.
As a small thank you, we’d like to offer you a $30 gift card (valid at GoNift.com). Use it to try out great new products and services nationwide without paying full price—wine, food delivery, clothing and more. Enjoy!
Your skill at doing this "art" will improve over time.
As a small thank you, we’d like to offer you a $30 gift card (valid at GoNift.com). Use it to try out great new products and services nationwide without paying full price—wine, food delivery, clothing and more. Enjoy!
Some images will look better than others depending upon contrast of subject and background as well as hair style.
As a small thank you, we’d like to offer you a $30 gift card (valid at GoNift.com). Use it to try out great new products and services nationwide without paying full price—wine, food delivery, clothing and more. Enjoy!

Things You'll Need

Microsoft Office 2010

References

About this article

Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 16,708 times.

Did this article help you?

How do I change the background color of a Picture in PowerPoint?

On the Design tab, select Format Background. Select Solid Fill, and pick a color from the gallery. If you want to have all slides have this same background color, on the Design tab, select Format Background > Apply to All.

How do you change the background of an object in PowerPoint?

You can also adjust the slide background in the Master view..

From Slide Master view, select the slide master or one of the layouts..

Right-click the slide and select Format Background..

Edit the background. ... .

Click the Close button in the Format Background pane..

Click the Close Master View button..

How do you remove the background of a Picture in PowerPoint?

Select the picture that you want to remove the background from. On the toolbar, select Picture Format > Remove Background, or Format > Remove Background. If you don't see Remove Background, make sure you have selected a picture.