​One thing I love about Google Slides is the ability to use images, shapes, hyperlinks and color to create dynamic presentations. With an idea, a little patience, and a lot of trial and error, you can elevate the creativity in projects and presentations to any level! A virtual showcase created in Google Slides is a great way for students to share what they have learned.

Nothing makes a slide presentation stand out better than an amazing image.  Here is how to use the Insert Image​ feature in Google Slides:

1.  Open a slide presentation that is in progress.
2.  On the toolbar, choose Insert>Image or use the Image Icon on your toolbar.

 3.  The insert image window will open.  Here you have the options to upload an image directly from your device, take a snapshot using your device camera, upload an image using a URL, search your Google photo albums, upload an image saved to your Google Drive, or search for an image from the Internet using Google.

4.  One advantage of using the last option, Search from within Google slides, is that images are pre-filtered for copyright.  If you were to open a new browser window and search the Internet for an image, Google would find all images that match your search, whether they have copyright protection or not.  However, by using Search from within the Google Insert Image Window, your search will return only images that are designated as free to use and share.  By searching from within the Google Slides App, the work of filtering by copyright license has been done for you!

5. There are additional filters available through the image window.  The first is the ability to search by ​Image Type.  Choose any type, or only a face, photo, clip art, or line drawing.  

7.  Once you find the perfect image, it't time to add it to your presentation.  Click on the image to choose it and hit Select to insert it into your slide.  A blue bounding box appears that allows you to resize the image.  Be sure to drag in or out only from the corners so that your image does not become distorted.

8.  Finally, when an image is clicked on and selected, specialized filters appear in the toolbar.  These filters allow you to complete actions such as adding and choosing a style for a picture borders, cropping and masking an image, adding color filters to change the appearance of an image or replacing an image completely.

​9. Masking an image allows you to change the shape of an image from plain square or rectangular.  Choose the down arrow next to the Cropping Tool and select a shape.  The outline of the picture changes to the shape you chose.  This feature really allows users to personalize the appearance of a slide.

10.  Image Options allows you to change the coloring and transparency of an image.  Recolor offers various hue choices including black & white.  You are also able to adjust the level of transparency, brightness and contrast.

With so many options to choose from, finding and adjusting an image to suite your Google Slides presentation is easy and fun!