Grayscale to Color Pictures in PowerPoint

This tutorial shows how to animate a grayscale picture into a color picture within PowerPoint -- download the finished presentation here.

Also, while this tutorial is done using PowerPoint 2007, you can use the same principles in older versions of PowerPoint.

1. Insert a new slide in your PowerPoint presentation file, and save it.
2. Now select the Home tab of the Ribbon, and click Layout option to bring up the Layout gallery that you can see in Figure 1. Choose the Blank layout from the gallery.
   
   
   Figure 1: Choose the Blank slide layout
3. Select the Insert tab of the Ribbon, and click the Picture option, as shown in Figure 2.
   
   
   Figure 2: Picture option in the Insert tab
4. This brings up the Insert Picture dialog box (see Figure 3). Navigate to the picture you want to use, and click Insert button.
   
   
   Figure 3: Insert picture
5. This will insert the picture on the slide. PowerPoint 2007 places most large pictures resized to fit the slide, but if you are using a previous version of PowerPoint, you might want to resize it to fit the slide.
   
   Now, select the picture, right click on it and choose Copy from the context menu as shown in Figure 4.
   
   
   Figure 4: Copy picture
6. Right click again to get the context menu and now choose the Paste option, this will place a duplicate copy of the picture that you can see in Figure 5 .
   
   
   Figure 5: Duplicated picture
   
   Make sure to place the duplicated picture exactly on top of the original picture.
7. Select the top most picture, and activate the Picture Tools Format tab in the Ribbon. In this tab, choose the Recolor option to view a dropdown gallery of options as shown in Figure 6, from this gallery, choose Grayscale (highlighted in red in Figure 6).
   
   
   Figure 6: Choose the Grayscale option.
   
   

   Tip:

   You can also choose any of the monochromatic or dutone recolor options to create a different effect!
8. This will recolor the selected picture to grayscale. Now, right click on this picture and choose Send to Back | Send to Back from the context menu as shown in Figure 7.
   
   
   Figure 7: Send to back
9. Since your grayscale picture has been sent right to back of all slide objects, you now end up with your original color picture on top. Select the color picture, and then access the Animations tab of the Ribbon, and choose Custom Animation (see Figure 8 ).
   
   
   Figure 8: Custom Animation
10. This opens the Custom Animation task pane on the right side of the PowerPoint interface, as shown in Figure 9.
    
    
    Figure 9: Custom Animation task pane
    
    

    Tip:

    Want to learn more about task panes in PowerPoint 2007? Look here.
11. With the color picture still selected, click the Add Effect button in the Custom Animation task pane to bring out flyout menus -- choose the Entrance | Fade option as you can see in Figure 10.
    
    
    Figure 10: Applying animation
    
    

    Tip:

    You can choose any other Custom Animation effect for your color picture, but the Fade effects works very well. Another effect that works well is the Cross effect.
12. Thereafter change the event option for Start to With Previous, and for Speed to Slow as shown in Figure 11.
    
    
    Note: If you want the animation from grayscale to color to happen on a click rather than automatically, then change the event option for Start to On Click.
    
    
    
    Figure 11: Change animation events and speed.
13. Play the presentation.