At first I wasn’t quite sure about this when I read the explanation but then I tried it and realised this could be useful when using Teams, Zoom, Hopin or any other video conferencing platform where you share the screen. It allows you to add your webcam or other camera as live video right there in your PowerPoint presentation.
It could also be useful in a large auditorium where you want the audience to see you. Could you also connect another camera or your iPhone and use that to show the audience something.
We all want to speed up how we work and you might have discovered that there is something in Excel that will do that. They are macros. These macros are a set of steps that Excel can do repeatedly at the click of a button. So let’s say you have to format a sheet, save it, sort the data and then print it, and you do the same thing the same way each time. Well you can tell Excel to record what you do once and then add a button so that it can do the same thing each time.
Isn’t that great. You are probably envisioning how you will get your work done faster and get home more quickly. The good news is you need know programming skills just the ability to do what you do each time you do this task.
Here are some videos I made to show you how. The first is how to record a macro, the second it how to add a button to a sheet and the third is how to add a background so you can have a nice dashboard for all the buttons that are going to speed things up.
This was something that could take me ages to do in a photo and could take a while to master, that is removing something in a photo that I didn’t want there. Sometimes as hard as I tried I also just couldn’t get it to quite do what I wanted.
Thanks to the remove tool in Photoshop that uses AI this is so easy. It can take a few attempts but on the whole this has really sped up my work.
Usually AI is something that people feel uncomfortable with as it is creating an image that they think isn’t real. But removing something like some dirt on a wall, a blemish on someone’s skin, or my favourte, removing an unsightly fire extinguisher of fire exit sign in the background. Yes, this is altering the image but it is making it look better so you are not distracted from your subject.
You do need to be connected to the internet to use these AI features.
One thing about Excel is that it is really useful for organising data. You can sort it, filter it, rearrange it and analyse it. There are also many functions that can be used too.
To make it even easier there are tables that can help here. It means that you can easily add data to a table and if you have any functions, PivotTables, charts and formulas they will update. The reason this is possible is that it sees the table as a collection of data, so you don’t have to worry about using cell references and ranges, the table has a name and you use that name in there.
Tables are easy to use because really they look no different to your spreadsheet. Although it does help by applying formatting to make it easy to read. You don’t have to have to formatting but it is there by default.
It also immediately applies the ability to sort and filter your table.
To show you how it works I have made this video to help you.
Whenever we hear about AI it makes us think of fake pictures, video, music, stories and more. But there are some good things to come out of AI and Adobe does make good use of it in their software like in Photoshop.
When I first started using Photoshop it could take hours to do retouching that I can now do in minutes. But something that could be difficult was filling in blank spaces around the edge of an image filling it what I would like to be there. This would have been particularly useful if I was stitching together a panorama.
Well now Photoshop has made this really easy with generative fill. I couldn’t believe how well it worked when I first tried it and couldn’t wait to share it, which is why I made this video to show you how to use it.
If you have used Excel you probably have used charts, or at least seen people use them in a spreadsheet. They are nice because you can easily visualise data. So it is probably a good idea to have them, when needed, in your PowerPoint presentation.
The great thing is you can either copy a chart you have already created in Excel into PowerPoint, and if you want to link to Excel so that if the data is updated it updates on PowerPoint too. You can also create a chart right there in PowerPoint.
Here is this video I show you how to create a chart in PowerPoint and also copy one across from Excel. I also go over formatting and how to add elements like legends.
If you are wanting to make a document stand out or are creating something like a poster, sign or invitation you might want to consider adding a border to a Word document.
These can be as simple as a line with a shadow to a graphic that is built-in to Word.
Now that new iPhones from the iPhone 15 have USB-C it makes it a lot easier to copy files to and from the iPhone. This means you can connect memory sticks and external drives. I often connect a card reader so that I can copy photos I’ve just taken directly to my iPhone, it then also saves it to the iCloud. If you are going to do that just be aware of your data allowance, you don’t want to be using it all up.
Once I’ve copied these files I can then send them or even load them into an app like Lightroom where I can edit my files.
You can also copy files from your iPhone so that you can save space or use them on another device.
This has been something you’ve been able to do for a while with iPads that have USB-C so you can do that there too.
All this makes using your iPhone even more useful.
If you are a photographer, beginner or professional, then the chances are you use Lightroom. It is very popular. It does a great job of organising your photographs and of course it also does a great job in processing and editing them.
It works across different devices and they sync together. It also means you can make a change on one device and appears on the other. I often do the bulk of my editing on my Mac and then might just have a look on my iPad to see how they look there. I then also have a copy on my iPad and iPhone that I can share or show others. I’m aware that I’m mentioning all Apple products but these work on Android devices as well.
I do sometimes load my photos on to the iPad and more recently my iPhone 15 Pro as it now has a USB-C port so easier to copy files. The iPad then syncs the files with my desktop version. In the meantime I can edit on the iPad. This is useful on jobs where clients want their photos in a hurry but also on holiday, so I don’t have to lug the laptop with me.
Once I have edited the photos I want I add them to an Album. In Lightroom Classic they call it a Collection. They are the same thing. So if you create an Album on one of your devices it will show up as a Collection in Lightroom Classic and vice versa. Cool huh!
And then the great thing is you can share that Album, I’m going to call them Albums from here on. You can give them the option to download JPGs, they are medium res but high quality. They can also comment on them, which is useful if you are collaborating.
Anyway here is a video I made to show you how to do it.
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