What's the best resolution for images in PowerPoint screen shows?

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This applies only to presentations that will be shown on screen or projected. The rules are different and a bit more complex if you need to print your slides. If you follow this advice, your images will also look fine when printed at small to moderate sizes, but they'll be too low-rez to allow you to make really nice-looking large printouts.

Here are the rules for making images look good on screen.

For images that will fill the slide, the image size (in pixels) should be equal to the computer's video resolution.

For example, if your computer is set to a display size of 1024 x 768, then that's the size you want your full-slide images to be.

If the image occupies only half the width and half the height of the slide, then it should be 1024/2 or 512 pixels wide and 768/2 or 384 pixels high.

The DPI of the image is irrelevant, confusing, meaningless, probably misleading and assuredly useless information in this particular situation. Ignore it. Ignore anybody who tells things about images and DPI. They're misguided.

If the show will be projected with a video projector, it doesn't matter how large or small the screen will be; the display resolution of the computer and that of the projector will have to be matched up, so you still match your images to the computer's display resolution.

Nice. Simple.

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