You are not hired to be the graphic designer so don’t be and simply ask Gen AI!
When I got my digital wedding photos, there was this photo that came out really great but one thing I disliked was that too many people on the back caught attention.
Likewise, the office got digital photo files from the orientation and there’s this one thing that I had to remove before I use it for the website.
Before generative AI, normal people like me who does not have any Graphic Design background with no photo editing skills would have to reach out to professionals to get touch-ups.
With generative AI tools like Adobe Firefly and Microsoft Designer, all we have to do is upload the photo and highlight the part in the photo, and type what you want it to do for you.
The best part is that users don’t need to wait for the program to be downloaded as most generative AI tools are web-based.
In less than 5 minutes, I could make my wedding photo highlight us only and remove the part in the orientation photo to be the website, public-safe photo.
Instructors at post-secondary institutions can do the same- professors can make their study guides or textbooks more visually appealing. Likewise, college administrators can utilize generative AI tools to better assist students by grabbing their attention with graphics.
Adobe Firefly Best Practices for Higher Ed
Whenever you need graphics for campus event calendar submission, presentation slides, webpages, a study guide, or a how-to guide for students, use Adobe Firefly!
You can use a natural language meaning you can type what you need just like you would describe to your student workers or colleagues. Then, Firefly can generate one for you.
Firefly gives you several options and from there, you can choose one that you like and use it to get closer to the one on your mind.
The following keywords will be useful for you to come up with the image. The following table can be found in my previous post titled 5 Ways Copilot Can Help Higher Education Administrators as well.
I used Adobe Firefly to create hero images for the following Professional series – feel free to check out the real examples!
- How to make data-driven decisions: https://sevissavvy.com/how-to-make-data-driven-decisions-1/
- Slate CRM Best Practices: https://sevissavvy.com/how-to-automate-repetitive-tasks-with-slate-crm-1/
You can do the same with the Photoshop web app: https://photoshop.adobe.com/
With the generative AI technology, how the older generation thinks about Photoshop might be different from what Gen Z thinks about the tool. For older generations, Photoshop is something you need to download, and look at the tutorial to learn how to use Photoshop to edit the photo.
For the younger generation, it is like other gen AI tools where you can type what you want and it will give you the graphic or edited photo without having to click any button to edit a photo or graphic.
If you would like to use the image that is taken on the campus but tweak it little bit for your needs, you can highlight the part in the image and type how you’d like to change it.
For example, let’s suppose your colleague gave you their profile photos for the website but the size of the photo is not consistent with other photos. To have a coherent look on the webpage, you can utilize the Photoshop web version.
All you need to do is upload the image, use the crop button to select the background, and type “expand the background.”
Tada- in less than 1 minute, you can get the profile photo with the expanded background which no one can tell that the background is AI-generated.
To remove any object in the photo, go to the Photoshop web version and upload the image, then circle the object that you would like to remove.
Photoshop will look at the neighboring object and fill the space where it had the object in the original photo.
This is useful when there’s a person in the photo that you could not get a chance for the agreement for publication.
Or like I did for my wedding photo, you can remove unnecessary objects to draw the audience’s attention to a certain point in the image.
Canva Best Practices for Higher Ed
Some colleges or offices may not have a paid membership for Canva but free users can take advantage of AI-powered features as well!
Canva has a strong advantage over other gen AI tools which is that it has pre-formatted templates for virtually all uses.
For example, you don’t have to search the Facebook image size format or Instagram Reels size. You can simply select the media type, find the template to your liking and customize it – for example, I typed “graduating students at the ceremony for web invitation.”
Even though I don’t have a paid membership, Canva.com is giving me several designs that I can use for the RSVP form, mailing and just to name a few.
If you are reading this post, you may already know that Canva offers thousands of templates that you can choose from– Canva is one of the essential tools for college administrators especially in student-facing offices.
You can also copy and paste the informational webpage that your office manages and ask Canva to give you the structure for your presentation slides.
I provided the information about the internship authorization program for international students (CPT) and this is what Canva created. To sum up, it can convert texts into graphics.
Colleges and universities that have Copilot for Microsoft 365 can do the same with Copilot in Microsoft PowerPoint- Canva is a good alternative option for those who do not have Copilot for Enterprise (Pro).
As far as collaboration is concerned, Canva is one of the easiest among all generative AI tools.
Being able to invite your student workers and colleagues make it very easy to collaborate and review the graphic.
The best practice is to share any design with the office’s general/central account so the design stays even if there are changes to the staffing.
Microsoft Designer Best Practices for Higher Ed
What Microsoft Designer sets apart from other generative AI tools is that it is powered by DALL-E 3 which is known as one of the most powerful generative AI tools at this moment.
You can create images for your needs in two steps.
First, type what types of design you would like to create to the Microsoft Copilot or Designer.
You can choose the image you would like to work on among the options.
Second, with the “seed” image, you can go further by saying how you are going to use the image.
For example, if you would like to write “May 1 at the Student Center” on the image, type “May 1 at the Student Center” and it will provide the edited image with the date and location information.
This allows users to create different types of images with one “seed” image. In other words, you can use the same image for RSVP forms, mailing, website updates, etc by providing different prompts.
As Microsoft Designer is a part of the Microsoft family, you can level up the game with Copilot.
You can ask Copilot to draft captions and hashtags to post on Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin.
To learn more about Copilot’s best practices for college professionals, check out the post titled 5 Ways Copilot Can Help Higher Education Administrators.
Generative AI tools lower the barrier for people who are not trained to be graphic designers to access amazing graphics.
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