Making A Picture "Cloudy" or "Fuzzy" With Storyline?

open in photoshop add a blur, lay over the top and fade in

Thanks, Phil.    Know that.    Just curious if there's way with Storyline itself. 

And, of course, there's PowerPoint 2010's blur effect . . .

That's the problem with Storyline: images look too good

I'd go with PowerPoint's blur feature and insert into Storyline. Blur effects are uber useful so plz consider adding a feature request for more image effects options.

Thanks, David!  Request is in.

A few of the Artistic Effects in PowerPoint 2010 or in Photoshop would be good to have.

I was even wishing for a background remover/magic extractor feature in Storyline yesterday, one that would also let me slice up the image that remains after the background was removed. 

I was removing the background from a black and white photo and then wanted to tint parts of what remained, hence the need to slice up what remains so each piece could be tinted. 

See the example below (the hands and grinder).  The grinder and pad "grind out" the course menu on a piece of steel and then leave to show the learner the menu.  (It's a course on a line of grinding products from 3M.)

I had to use a couple of tools outside Storyline to do this.

I added that need to the feature request also.

Gerry, can you show a single image of all four? images in their original format? This is a great example of the types of things folks work with... I'd like to see what you started with.

Thanks, David!

Here's the images that I started with.  The first is the one that I had to remove the background from and cut into pieces.

• Hands and grinding wheel
• Decorative piece of metal
• A 3M Scotch-brite grinding pad

I wanted the hands and grinder to appear and attach to the pad, grind a bit and then exit with the course menu having been grinded out in the metal.  (I may revise this a tad to first have a hand put the pad on the metal.  That's a simple change.)

I was also using the free font on this page for the etched menu:  http://www.fuzzimo.com/free-embossed-text-label-font/

Here is my story file--just started this course on Friday--so what is there is really "rough.".  The slide for the hand/grinding effect is Scene 1, Slide 4. 

Wish Storyline had a spin emphasis animation (one that we could control how fast and how long the spin was--have to add a feature request for that).  Making do with multiple copies of the same object with a spin entrance animation is a tad tiresome for a lazy guy like me.

The narration is "rough" placeholder narration by me until I get the WAV files from the narrator and then re-time everything.  I'm having him wait to do the narration till I get the course completely laid out and the slides roughed in, in case I need to change the script--which I usually end up tweaking as I build things.  I prefer having the freedom to change things up if it's right, even if it means I have to re-time things for the final slides.

One thing--may have discovered a bug.  Not sure.   When I was going to tint the arms (to get a pinkish tone), I went to Format > Recolor > More Variations > More Colors.  Any of the colors I chose from "More Colors" never worked to tint things (didn't have a shade of red or pink in my color scheme).   The colors chosen after "More Variations" (i.e., the basic colors and my color scheme) did work for tinting.

Gerry,

Based on my post count, you can assume that I have no suggestions regarding your question.  But I have to tell you that I love, love love slide 2 in your introduction.  The "character in the mirror" effect is quite good.   But even more, I love the way you handled the changes of expression in the character.  I recently developed a slide with a character who had several pose and expression changes.  It was a nightmare to get them all fading out and in and out and in again (each with a separate line on the timeline) in sync with the other elements on the timeline.  Reducing all that to one character on the timeline, plus an innocuous rectangle off to the side and a trigger or two?  Elegant.

Thanks, but I wish i could say it was my idea .  Think I got that from David Anderson during the beta--who, by the way, along with Tom and Jeanette, is an e-learning GENIUS, especially with graphics and approach to design.

Like you, I was also just using multiple poses of a character as separate images butted together on a timeline.  Then David posted something on using states instead.  So now I usually use states.

Okay those are some tough selections... especially the arms.

For what it's worth, your slide looks great You might be the Storyline Animation Guru after your MN demo and this latest project. The spin animation effect turned out really well.

Interesting that some of the colors don't recolor. Changing the design color scheme works and I can select a pinkish color, but grabbing the pink colors from  More variations... doesn't apply the color on my end. Do you mind submitting that? I know you've submitted a few already, today

I see at least 1/2 dozen Screenrs you should be recording on this project. Should we schedule some time to talk:-)

I took a quick pass at the arms. Curious what you used to create the selection?

Thanks, Dave!  Really like what you did.  Very nice job.

Yup, I'll submit the bug. 

I used Photoshop Elements 9 to extract the background but it was still too tough rough and unnatural (still learning that feature in PS).  So I fine-tuned things in Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006, a program that I still like sometimes, and also sliced things up there.  I usually reach for Xara first but wanted to try something different.

Not sure if I am THE animation guru.  I just like to make things interesting (and challenging for me). And I learn so much from you, Tom, Jeanette and the other wonderful folks here.  Though every time I do something with heavy animations, I keep hearing Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard Meyer whispering in my ear to not go overboard or to distract from the learning, which I can have a tendency to do.

Too many of the courses I did earlier in Presenter were ones where the script was locked in stone (i.e., things approved by HR or Legal where I couldn't change a word).  And they were deadly boring.  So I searched for ways to make things "appropriately visually interesting," slide by slide--like inserting repeating characters to suggest a story somehow or adding appropriate animation.

I just carried that over now to Storyline.

Be happy to help out with some Screenrs if you could wait until the end of October/beginning of November.  My schedule until then is pretty hectic with overlapping projects, family needs, a speaking engagement (same local ASTD conference Jeanette will be at), and our only vacation this year.

BTW, just finished a first version of another heavily animated slide for the same course with "the hands."  Here's just that slide in a story file.  Still needs a couple of things (like images of the words in the concentric circles to make things a little more "real"). Enjoy!