How to Fade a Picture From Color to Black & White for PowerPoint

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Photographers may spend months trying to get the exact color, shading and look for a picture, but Microsoft PowerPoint gives you the power to eliminate all of that with a single click. After you’ve imported pictures into your business presentation, you may find they’re ideal to convey essential information, but the colors are too distracting or even obscure the other points on the slide. Keep the picture while discarding unnecessary color using PowerPoint’s black and white conversion options.

Start PowerPoint. Click the “Insert” tab at the top of the screen. Click the “Picture” button on the ribbon.

Browse to the color picture to fade to black and white and double-click the image. If desired, drag the picture into place on the slide. If the image is small, it may be helpful to use the small enlargement slider in the bottom-right corner of the window to zoom in on the picture.

Click the new pink “Picture Tools” tab that appears at the top of the screen. If you don’t see it, click the picture to bring it out – the tab only appears when the image is enabled.

Click the “Color” button on the left side of the ribbon. Hover the cursor, without clicking, on the very first option under “Color Saturation,” which is 0%. Notice the picture is now black and white, but considered grayscale, which includes shades of gray. If this is satisfactory, click the 0% to commit the change.

Experiment with other options on the menu including one of the three “Black and White” options under the button’s “Recolor” menu. This eliminates any gray and turns your picture entirely black and white.

Right-click the picture and select “Format Picture.” Experiment with the sliders in the “Picture Corrections” and “Picture Color” links on the left side of the window. You can perform tasks such as adjusting the brightness, contrast, saturation and temperature, all of which help fade the image to your preferred look, which can be helpful when you want to layer it behind other text or pictures. Click “Close” to close the window when satisfied.