- Want to know my best secrets for making
highly visual presentations really fast and for free?
Well, I'm gonna tell you in this video.
So, chances are you've been wanting to use more visuals
in your lectures, conference presentations,
workshops et cetera but you're worried
that it's gonna take way too much time
or you've already tried it and it has taken
way too much time or you're worried that using stock photos
means that you can only find you know super cheesy photos
of white guys in business suits giving the thumbs-up
and a cheery smile
or maybe you're thinking that you don't have the money
to create highly visual presentations
because that costs too much.
Well, I've got a super simple process
to help you find photos fast,
find photos that are not just cheesy white guys
in business suits but are actually powerful
and find visuals that are free.
Fast, not cheesy and free.
How does that sound?
Well, you're going to love this.
All you need is a visual database
which is just a dedicated folder system of stock photos
and gifs and illustrations and other visuals that you like
organized and set up in a way where you can
quickly search and browse through and find images
to add to your presentations.
Now, that might feel a little anti-climatic
but just stay with me because this is actually something
that has helped so many of my clients
in so many different ways, not even just presentation.
So, just hang in there a little longer
and let me explain.
So, I think it's gonna help if we directly compare
my idea of a visual database
with how you're probably searching for visuals right now.
And I think that's gonna help you see why it's so different
and why that difference is actually
gonna save you tons of time while also making
your presentations better, whoa!
That's the goal, right?
So, here's how you're probably searching
for visuals right now.
You're working on your slides,
you basically create a wall of text not to make fun of you,
that's just what a lot of academics and scientists do
and you do have this moment of like,
oh, this is just a wall of text.
I should probably add a visual,
I should probably add a picture to make this
a little more interesting.
So, you go to the interwebs and you start searching for
the perfect photo to fit that slide that you were working on
and it's probably going to take you approximately forever
because it's just the way you're doing it,
the way that you're searching and then you probably
never even find the perfect visual that you want
and so maybe we even just give up
and you're like, okay, this is good enough.
I don't love it but whatever.
And then you add that visual to your slide
and to be honest, if you already have a wall of text
and you're adding a visual to it,
it's probably really tiny and kind of
looks like an afterthought so it's not even gonna make
the huge impact that you wanted.
And then just to make things worse,
you kind of have to start this inefficient process
all over again and because you've spent so much time
just looking for that one visual,
you lose your place and you have to take time
to reorient yourself to your slides
to kind of figure out where you were,
where you wanna go next and you have to sort of
restart that thinking.
Let's contrast that with my recommended process.
So, when you follow my approach
and you have a visual database and you're used to it,
you've got a lot of visuals, it's become your new habit,
it's part of your workflow,
what will happen is you'll be working on your slides
and you maybe add a few keywords
and you'll be more likely to pause and think,
wait, don't I just have a visual for this idea?
Or you'll think, hey, maybe I have a visual for this
in my visual database.
And so, you search your visual database quickly
and it doesn't take that much time
because again, it's a searchable, visual database
and then you add it to your slides earlier in the process.
And so, the visual is more prominent,
it takes up more space and you don't even have
a wall of text.
And because that whole process went so fast,
you don't lose your spot,
you don't really lose that momentum
that you had when working on your presentation
so you just pick things up right where you left off.
It's so much more efficient for your brain.
So, having a visual database means you are going to spend
significantly less time hunting down specific photos
because you already have a stash waiting for you.
It means you will start to think more visually
from the start.
Visuals are no longer an afterthought
because you have your visual database
and it's always on your mind, it's always kind of there
and you'll want to use all of the photos
that you have in there and that ultimately means
you will spend less time writing those walls of text slides,
you'll have that visual database waiting,
you will want to use it
so you'll be more likely to just go to your visuals
and add that to your slide rather than writing a slide
with 100 words.
So hopefully, you can see why a visual database
can actually lead to a powerful change
in the way you create presentations
and how long it takes if you do.
Let me know by hitting that thumbs up.
Okay so, how do you create a visual database?
I think you're going to love how easy this is
and even how fun it can be.
So, first, all you do is you go to a free
stock photo website
and I'm going to share some of my favorites with you
at the end of the video, okay.
So, you go to that website first
then you browse that website and download the ones you like,
the ones that catch your eye,
the ones that look high-quality,
the ones that you can see using in a slide.
Don't overthink this, this should go fast.
You do not need to have a specific purpose in mind
for that photo to download it.
Just view it as a download party.
Take 15 20 minutes and make your goal to download
15 to 20 images.
Then the last step is to just rename those file names
and add some keywords so that you can find it again
so that they're searchable
and then just put them in folders.
Create a folder system that makes sense for your brain
and the way that you think about images
and how you want to find them.
So, again, the idea is you're setting yourself up
so they're going to be easy to find in the future
whether through searching your finder
or through browsing your own folders.
That's pretty much it.
Anybody can do this.
Now, in terms of when you should be doing this,
when you should add to your visual database,
basically, whenever and frequently, okay.
So, I love doing this when it's the afternoon,
I'm kind of tired and I wouldn't be able to do much else
but I don't wanna end the day,
I still wanna do something, I still want to be productive.
I put on my favorite music
and then I just have that download party.
It's actually really fun and I find it very relaxing
and just you know the more it's on your mind
and something that you just add to every other week
or at least once a month then the quicker
you're going to build up that visual database
and have over 500 photos.
I probably have thousands of photos.
I literally don't even count anymore because I have so many
and the more I have, the more options I'm going to have
when I'm working on my slides.
So, the idea with this is you just add to it here and there
kind of whenever you can.
And another great time to add to your visual database
is right when you're about to start working
on a new presentation and you're at the beginning stage
of my stress free presentation design workflow,
not a very easy thing to say
but if you haven't seen my video on that yet
then make sure you watch that next
because I tell you when to add to your visual database
and there's even a free toolkit to go with that video.
So, check that out for more information about how and when
to weave in this new practice.
Okay, so what websites should you go to to find
free, non cheesy photos.
So, what are some of my free websites for this?
I will share them with you and yes the links to these
are in the description below.
Before I share those websites, if you're still here,
that is awesome, thank you.
It would be great if you hit that
big, beautiful, red subscribe button
because I have videos every week to help
academics, scientists, researchers and evaluators
create better presentations.
Okay so, the first website
I need to tell you about is BioRender.
These aren't stock photos, they're icons and illustrations
and they are so cool.
It's a gigantic icon library for science illustrations
and icons, cells, plants, proteins,
chemistry, human anatomy.
You know it blows my mind how much is in here
and they have a account.
They also have paid accounts but the free account
is totally reasonable.
So, check out that website.
The next website I have to recommend
is Women of Color in Tech Chat on Flickr.com.
Now, what I like about this website is that
it's women of color and mostly black, Latinx and Asian women
and their high quality photos of people in meetings
and collaborating and using computers,
using laptops and tablets.
I mean these are all things that you know professionals do.
It applies to a lot of what we do and can be used
in a lot of different ways.
It's not just cheesy thumbs up you know,
it's nothing like that.
And you know I have seen these photos on other websites,
kind of scattered around
but if you go here and just spend like an hour
having that download party, download, download, download,
you're gonna have something like over 100 photos
to start your visual database with.
So, that's why I'm recommending you just go here to do that
so that you can have that download party
and kickstart your visual database
rather than just trying to find them scattered
across the other stock photo websites.
The next site is death to stock.
Now, what happens is if you sign up for their email list
then they'll send you random packs
of really nice photos for free.
They say every month.
I do not get them every month, okay.
Sometimes it's every three months
and I swear one year it was only like a couple times a year
but still when it arrives, it's a nice little present
of about twenty photos and all you have to do
is download the folder, drag and drop
into your visual database and boom,
you've just added twenty awesome photos
to your visual database and you didn't pay for it,
it didn't take a lot of time.
So, it's kind of a no-brainer for me
to just be on their email list and get those photos.
And what I really like about their photos
is that they're very unique and artistic,
they aren't stock photos in the way we think of them
like their name promises.
They're different, they're unique.
Here are some examples of photos I've received from them
over the years.
It's a huge variety and again, very different
from the stock photo sites that you're used to seeing
so I really like them.
Okay, the next website for free stock photos is Pexels.com.
You may have heard of it.
It is very popular and it's one of my favorites.
I love it because I can find almost anything here,
doctors, friends hanging out with friends, couples,
food, drinks, dogs, cute animals with lots of expressions.
I mean there are so many things on Pexels
and most of the time I start my search on this website
just because again, I can just find
so many different things.
Okay, the last website is probably not gonna be a surprise,
it's very popular, it's Unsplash.com so it's not news
but I wanted to talk to you about this website a little bit
and add some nuance to this.
So, yes, it used to be one of my number one favorites,
right up there with Pexels and I do still use it
but it's not quite my favorite anymore
because something has kind of happened to Unsplash
in the last year.
Leave a comment if you noticed this too.
Like I'm very curious if I'm the only one
who feels this way.
So, Unsplash is very recently starting to feel like Flickr.
I don't know if you've ever tried to find really good photos
on Flickr but it would take me hours.
I mean it would take forever
because you have to sort through.
First of all, you have to find the ones that are available
for use, you know under the right Creative Commons license,
you have to sort through
and a lot of them were just kind of amateur level.
Not to be insulting, it's just you wanna look
for very high quality photos for your presentations
and you know you had to sort through
ones that had bad lighting, cluttered backgrounds,
terrible positioning of the subject.
I mean that was what Flickr mostly had.
It was like finding a gem when you found a picture
that was actually really good.
So, when Unsplash and Pexels came on the scene,
oh, it was such a breath of fresh air to find these
but now, again, let me know if you feel like
you've noticed this too, Unsplash kind of feels like that.
Like if I'm like constantly sorting,
like I feel like it just takes me forever
to find a good photo that meets those
sort of high quality requirements.
So, I do we'll use it but I mostly use it
for things that are more whimsical
and you know just just kind of rare images like that.
So, I don't know, I do still use it
which is why I wanted to at least mention it
but I'm I don't know how I'm gonna feel in a year
if they kind of keep this up.
Plus a lot of their images now,
it's like they're making it for Instagram,
maybe that's a better way to explain this.
Like I feel like I'm searching for photos that people would
like influencers I would use on Instagram, right?
Like they're square and there's no,
there's no space around the images which is what you want
for slides but okay, I'll stop my rant
but I'm curious.
Comment below if you if you feel the same.
Okay, so here are free photos slash icons
slash illustrations to websites to go to.
Unsplash, BioRender, Pexels, Women of Color in Tech Chat
and Death to Stock.
Now, here's a special treat for you for staying
all the way to the end.
I'm gonna share some insider info with you.
I want to issue a warning about Pixabay.
A lot of people in academia recommend Pixabay.
I didn't because you have to be extra careful
on that site.
There is a ton of clip art and cheesy and outdated photos.
So, for example, here's the screenshot of Pixabay
and there are only two photos on here where I'm like,
yeah, that sort of meets the criteria of what you want
for photos to be included in your presentation.
All of the other ones, cheesy, cliched, outdated,
won't work for your slides.
So, I actually use Pixabay for my training workshops
when I'm looking for images
to explain what you should avoid,
what type of images you should not use.
So, keep that in mind.
If you haven't had training on how to choose modern,
high-quality visuals like the one that I have
in my online course or my workshops,
I recommend that you avoid this website,
otherwise you are risking using a photo
that is just not good.
Okay, finally, make sure that you read the license section
for all of the free stock photo websites,
the ones on this list and other ones that you find.
And you have to make sure that you use them legally.
A lot of academics make the mistake and they think
that if it's a non-profit purpose
that they can just do whatever they want and use images
and however they want to and then is not true.
You are held to copyright law.
So, read the license section.
They will tell you what you can do
and how to use their photos,
whether you need to give credit or not, okay.
So, just make sure you're reading those
'cause each website has a different license.
Okay, with that said, feel free to post below
with websites that you really like
and find good visuals from.
New ones are popping up all the time
so I love checking them out.
And just in general, tell me what you thought of this video
and you know I'm not like a huge channel over here, okay.
This is a small channel so I read every single one
and try to reply to them
and if you're already a member of my paid online course,
Blast Off to Stellar Slides
then make sure you check out create your visual database
master class, if you haven't already
because I share a ton more links to other websites in there,
including my number one favorite website
that I constantly look for for most of my photos.
I didn't share that in the video,
it's a secret one for you.
So yeah, be sure to check that out if you haven't yet
or just ask me in slack and I will tell you.
And just in general, a reminder that that includes
tips on how to find you know high quality, non cheesy photos
plus you have tips for that in the course as well.
So, now you know my best secret for creating
highly visual presentations really fast and for free
so your action item today is to get going
with your visual database right now.
Sign up for Death to Stock,
go to Women of Color in Tech Chat on Flickr
and have a download party
and don't forget to rename them and organize them.
Thank you so much for watching this video.
If you are ready to get serious
about making better presentations and using the visuals
from your visual database,
well then check out my free course
called Stellar Slides in Five.
The link is in the description below
and if you enjoyed this video and if it was helpful,
hit that thumbs up, share it with others
and don't forget to subscribe
and yeah, that's it.
I'm Dr. Echo, thank you so much for watching this video
and helping me put an end to death by PowerPoint.
I'll see you next week, bye.