How to Create a Silhouette in PowerPoint?

Creating a silhouette in PowerPoint may require some patience, but it is quite easy to achieve. The complexity of the process depends on the image that you want to turn into a silhouette. It is easy to turn an image into a silhouette if the background is transparent.

If the image has a background, you will have to use the Remove Background feature of PowerPoint, and that’s a bit of a tricky task. In this article, we learn how to create a silhouette in PowerPoint for both types of images, with and without a background.

What is a Silhouette?

A silhouette is the dark, solid outline of a person, object, or scene against a lighter background, often seen in profile or as a shadow. It represents the overall shape rather than details, which are uniform in a single dark color, and can be found in art, photography, fashion, and animation.

A silhouette is an artistic method of rendering an outline of a person or object. Only a single dark color is used to define the outline of the object. Without the colors, viewers can easily determine the original object or person in the silhouette.

Creating a Silhouette in PowerPoint

You need an image for this process because we will be using an image to create a silhouette in PowerPoint. There are two possibilities, the image can have a transparent background or a background with different objects and colors. We will discuss both possibilities.

Method 1: Create a Silhouette of an Image with a Transparent Background

Any image of a shape, object, or person can be used. A transparent background will make the process easier. Let’s start with the step-by-step guide on how to create a silhouette in PowerPoint.

Step 1: Insert your image into the slide. One way is to simply drag the image and drop it on the slide, or use the insert option in the top ribbon to insert the image. We have the image below with a transparent background for this method.

Step 2: Select the picture that you just added and go to the Picture Format tab. Click Transparency and then click Picture Transparency Options.

A new pane will appear on the right with different options related to the picture, including sharpness, brightness, contrast, and many other aspects of the image.

Step 3: From the Picture Format pane, set Brightness to -100% and Contrast 100%. You will get a silhouette just like the image shown below.

Method 2: Create a Silhouette of an Image with Background

Let’s say you have an image with a background, but you want to turn it into a silhouette. The process is just like the first method, but we need to remove the background first. So, let’s see how to remove the background of an image in PowerPoint.

How to Remove Image Background in PowerPoint?

First of all, insert an image to the slide and then go to Picture Format tab and click Remove Background option as shown in the image below.

PowerPoint will automatically detect the background but usually, this automatic detection is not accurate and you will have to make manual selections to remove the background. The initial detection may look like this.

As you can see, many parts of the object are also marked as background, but we need to keep those parts of the car. Choose the “Mark Areas to Keep” tool and start selecting the parts of the car that are marked as background.

You will see the live progress and here is how the image might look after careful selections to remove background. Once you have made selections, click Keep Changes button to remove background.

The accuracy of the background removal depends on your efforts. You can also use online background removal tools instead of going through all this.

Create Silhouette

Now, you have an image with clear background, and the next step is to follow the method 1, go to Picture Format tab >> Transparency >> More Options >> Change Brightness and Contrast levels and image will be turned into silhouette.

Unlock the True Potential of PowerPoint

Just like the background removal tool, there are many other useful features and tools in PowerPoint that many users don’t know about. If you don’t want to waste time on learning all these things from scratch, use AI to elevate your PowerPoint experience, try Twistly for PowerPoint.

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Conclusion

It is easy to create a silhouette in PowerPoint by adjusting brightness and contrast levels for images with a transparent background. If you find PowerPoint too complicated and old-school, install Twistly and supercharge your PowerPoint software with AI for making instant presentations.