There’s a lot of promise to artificial intelligence (AI) for image generation. However, as it currently works it’s not as simple as prompting an image and getting something perfect to download and use. AI can generate a lot of nice results quickly. However, using the images for production work can be a challenge.

My key objective is to create viable (not necessarily perfect) characters that I can use in online training programs or PowerPoint presentations. I am not a professional illustrator or Photoshop pro, so I want some steps that are simple and not too time consuming.

Here are some previous posts where we looked at some ideas:

• What I Learned Creating AI Images for E-Learning
• Simple Tips on Creating Your Own Illustrations with AI
• How to Quickly Create Illustrated Characters with AI

I’ve been playing around with some AI image generators to get a better feel for how they work and how I can use them when I create e-learning courses. I narrowed it down to a few basic steps that seem to work for me:

• Create the character(s) using prompts in AI
• Edit it to fix artefacts
• Crop to isolate the character
• Upscale for better quality
• Remove background
• Convert to vector

The Reality of Working with AI Illustrated Characters

AI generates a lot of weirdness with illustrated characters between the twisted hands, distorted faces, missing eyes, odd poses, and missing limbs and fingers. I don’t always find the same issue with photographic characters probably because there are more models from which to learn.

Consistency is the other issue. Getting one good character isn’t too hard but getting that same character in multiple poses is a challenge. Or getting different characters with the same style. It takes a little practice and willingness to settle for close enough.

Quick Microlearning Course for Creating AI Illustrated Characters

I used Rise 360 to put together a simple course that shows the process I go through to create the free illustrated characters I’ve been sharing. You’ll notice that my editing skills in Photoshop are basic, so hopefully you’ll be inspired to try creating characters yourself.

Click here to view the course.

I also added a quick survey if you want to share character ideas with me. I’ll use the results to test things out.

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I see the promise of AI generated assets for e-learning. I’m not an illustrator. I have limited Photoshop skills. Because of this, my options for custom illustrations are slim. However, with AI I can find a balance of creating viable illustrated characters with minimal skills.

In previous posts we looked at:

• What I Learned Creating AI Images for E-Learning
• Simple Tips on Creating Your Own Illustrations with AI

Today, I’ll show some of the basic steps I use to create the illustrated characters I’ve shared in LinkedIn recently. In these three tutorials, I’ll give an overview on how to create simple, viable illustrated characters using AI. I am working with a few objectives: quick, simple, and minimal editing. I am willing to live with some imperfections.

Getting Started with AI Tip

I am using Midjourney to create my AI illustrations. You can use whatever you want. The process is very similar regardless of application. I will add that not all tools offer the same quality. For example, here are two images using the same text prompt. The good example on the right comes from Midjourney. The other from one of the many of the tools that are out there trying to make money quickly from the AI gold rush. Buyer beware!

Step 1: How to Create a Character

I only cover the basics in the tutorials below and show some differences when you change the settings, but the secret with AI prompting is knowing how to adjust parameters such as style, seeding, and quality. The more you use those parameters the better control you have over your results. I will add that I find using fewer words is better.

There are a lot of videos on YouTube and elsewhere on getting consistent characters. I’m not going to get into the weeds on this. Here is a useful source for Midjourney users: John Walter: he has a good series on creating a consistent character.

• Set up your prompt. I use character, action, style, and white background (so I can clean the image up after I download it).
• Make parameter selections for style, etc.
• Once you have a character style you like, change the character descriptions. This is where you can mitigate the bias that is built-into the AI model.

The video below walks through some of these tips, and we look at options in terms of unique styles and characters.

Click here to view the video tutorial on YouTube.

Step 2: Create a Quick Character Set from a Single Panel

This is easy and will give you five characters that are similar.

• Generate a character.
• Select a character to upscale.
• Do another version (minimal variance) which will provide four more similar characters.
• Download the characters and clean them up.

Click here to view the video tutorial on YouTube.

Step 3: Create a Character with Multiple Poses

A prompt with multiple poses will give you the same character but slightly different. You can play around with the number of poses, but three poses are a sweet spot. At a minimum you get three similar characters. Assuming the iterative characters are similar enough, you end up with fifteen similar characters.

• Generate a character and include the number of poses.
• Select a character panel to upscale.
• Do another version (minimal variance) which will provide four more similar characters.
• Download the characters and clean them up.

Click here to view the video tutorial on YouTube.

Step 4: Don’t Expect Perfection

This approach isn’t a perfect way to create characters. It’s a quick way to create good enough characters. My goal is to create viable characters quickly. So, I am willing to live with some imperfections.

• The hands and faces are problematic. That’s OK. With multiple characters you’ll get enough parts you can mix and match to get some good characters.
• You don’t need to use every character you get.
• Once you edit the characters, you will fix some of the issues that AI instigates. I’ll cover that in the next post.

Hopefully, these tips help and be sure to download the free characters in the community.

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Copying text from images comes in handy especially when updating old e-learning courses. Sometimes you may not have the source file and have to work for older published content. In those cases, do a screen grab of the course and then extract the text from the image. Then copy and paste the text into the application you use to build your e-learning courses.

How to Copy Text from Images

You may already have some applications that can extract the image. Here are a couple of common ones:

• Microsoft OneNote
• Snag-it

If you don’t have either of those applications, that’s OK. I recommend using Microsoft PowerToys. It’s free and easy to use.

How to Copy Text from Images with Microsoft PowerToys

The steps for this are pretty simple. No need to do screen shots.

• Install Microsoft PowerToys.
• Locate the text you want to extract.
• Press Windows+Shift+T to activate the Text Extractor.
• Select the text.
• Paste into a document.

Here’s a quick video to show the process.

Click here to view the tutorial on YouTube.

As you can see, it’s pretty simple to copy and paste the text. So if you run into an issue where you have old courses but not the original source file, keep this tip in mind.

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As a general rule, it’s good practice to edit files on your local drive and not a network drive (or online storage like Google Drive or Dropbox). For example, when I work with a .story file that’s on Dropbox, I’ll sometimes get some sort of syncing error or a series of duplicated or conflicted files. This makes sense because the drive is constantly monitoring changes in the file and updating the file. One tip for Dropbox is to pause syncing if you’re working from a Dropbox folder.

However, I like to move files from the network drive to my local drive to do production work and make the edits. However, that means what’s on the desktop is the most current and not backed up. If my computer crashed, I’d lose everything. Thus, I need to move things back to the storage drive when I’m done. The challenge is remembering to do that.

I’ve had times where I work on a file and then go to eat and come back to find my computer crashed or maybe the app closed. Or every once in a while, there’s the quick power outage. Whatever it is, there’s always the chance you lose your work and because it wasn’t backed up, you can’t access the most recent one from your storage drive.

To avoid these issues, I use SyncToy, a free application from Microsoft to back-up my files at night. Here are the basic steps:

• I work from an “active projects” folder on my desktop.
• I create a duplicate folder on Dropbox (or any storage/network drive).
• I set my folder on the desktop to automatically sync with the duplicate folder. This overwrites what’s in the storage drive folder, thus any changes I made during the day are preserved. An added benefit with some of the services like Dropbox is that there’s some versioning control, so that comes in handy, as well.

Using SyncToy

I wrote about this solution almost ten years ago. It’s still viable. Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn’t promote the application anymore, but you can still download SyncToy from here. I am on Windows 11 and as you see in the tutorials below, it still works fine.

You select a “Left” and “Right” folder to sync, and then determine how and when you want to sync them.

The left folder is my “active projects” folder on the desktop. The right folder is my storage drive folder. I set it to sync every night at 8:00 PM. Here’s a tutorial that shows how to set up and sync two folders using Microsoft SyncToy.

To sync the folders, open SyncToy and select “Run.” Of course, that requires you remembering to do so, but that’s where the next step comes in.

View the SyncToy tutorial on YouTube.

Task Scheduler

Your Windows computer has a task scheduler that lets you schedule tasks to run at specific times. That’s why it has that fancy name.

In this case, I want to create a task to run SyncToy at 8:00 PM daily. The tutorial below walks through the basic steps of creating a new task and when to run it.

What I am showing you is relatively simple. There’s a lot you can do with Task Scheduler and I’m sure you can find a ton of information on the Microsoft site or on YouTube.

Let’s review the process:

• Create a folder on your local computer to manage your e-learning projects.
• Create a duplicate folder on your storage drive.
• Set up a folder pair to sync the two folders.
• Create a task with Task Scheduler to automate syncing the two folders at a specified time.

View the Task Scheduler tutorial on YouTube.

Too bad SyncToy isn’t going to be around forever and perhaps one of you have a comparable solution to offer. In the meantime, you can still download the application and it’s still a viable process.

What do you do to manage files between your local and network drives?

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I do a lot of presentations live and online. I also record a ton of tutorials. During those presentations I’m usually showing how to do something and attendees need to see the mouse movement and where it’s at. Here are a few simple tips to highlight your mouse when presenting or recording your tutorial.

Here’s a video tutorial that walks through the tips below if you want more detail.

Click here to view the tutorial on YouTube.

Make the Mouse Pointer Extra Large

In a presentation or tutorial you are trying to direct the viewer’s eye. This is especially true for software demos where it’s easy to lose track of what’s going on and where the mouse is moving, more so if the viewer isn’t familiar with the user interface.

Go into the mouse properties and change the mouse point to extra large.

Use Keyboard Shortcut to Show Mouse Location

I use this quite a bit. In the Pointer Options of the mouse properties, set the mouse to show location when pressing the control key. Whenever you move the mouse to somewhere else, press the control key and you can direct the viewer to that part of the screen.

Create a Spotlight Effect to Show Mouse Location

Microsoft PowerToys are little applications that add more functionality to Windows. In a previous post, we looked at how to install a simple color picker. That’s not all that comes with the PowerToys. There are three mouse related features that could come in handy. In fact, I use the spotlight effect instead of the control button feature above.

Install PowerToys and then select the mouse features you want to enable. Play around with the settings and see what works best for you.

Highlight Onscreen Left and Right Clicks

If you want to show where the mouse is when you click, set the left and right click to different colors and as you click it’s easy to see where the mouse is and you’re doing. Press Windows+Shift+H and that activates the mouse click highlighter.

Highlight the Mouse Click with Crosshairs

Press Control+Alt+P and that activates the crosshairs. Personally, I don’t find this one as useful, but it is an option. I’m kind curious who would use this type of highlighter and when. Feel free to share in the comments.

The PowerToys are nice. I use the spotlight effect all the time. It looks elegant and easy on the eyes. I always found the mouse options with the control click circles to be a bit old looking and kind of herky jerky.

Hope these tips come in handy when you do your next webinar, presentation, or screencast tutorial.

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I’ve written about the Microsoft PowerToys in the past. They come with some handy applications. There’s an application that allows you to preview .SVG files. This is more important today than it was even a year ago as more and more courses are using .SVG. There’s also a feature to rename your files. This comes in handy if you want to convert a folder of images to match a project’s title.

I was looking at the updated PowerToys and thought I’d highlight the new color picker and how it has real practical value.

Color Picker for E-Learning

I use a color picker multiple times during the day. Many apps like Storyline and PowerPoint have color picking tools. However, they tend to be confined to working in the application. There are browser extensions for color picking websites. I use them sometimes when I work in Rise 360. I also use Color Cop (another free app).

However…

I think I’ve been able to consolidate all of my color picking needs in a single tool via the Color Picker in PowerToys. Three things I really like:

• It’s simple and elegant.
• I can pick colors from anywhere on my computer without being constrained by an app or browser.
• I can edit the colors or get quick derivatives. For example, I could pick a fill color and use one of the derivatives for a border.

Select Windows+Shift+C and it opens the color picker. From there you can pick any color. Using your mouse wheel to zoom in. And once you’re in the editor, you get the hex code and a range of tones within the color as an easy way to create a secondary color derivative.

Here’s a quick tutorial to show a little more detail.

Click to view the tutorial on YouTube.

If you need a color picker, you can’t beat the PowerToys. It works great and its price can’t be beat.

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If you’re not using Rise.com or a learning management system to manage your e-learning courses, then you’ll need another way to upload courses to a web server to share. This is especially true if you’re maintaining a professional portfolio in one of those simple website builders like Wix where you can’t upload your published course files.

In an earlier post we looked at using Amazon S3 to share courses and today we’ll look at using Google Cloud.

• With Google Cloud, you create an account and add a project.
• From there you create a bucket to hold the content folder.
• You upload files and folders (or published e-learning courses).
• Then you add permission to access them. This generates the URL you can share with others.

Google gives you 5 GB free, and odds are you will never have to pay for the service unless you have a lot of content. And even then, it’ll only cost a few dollars a year at most.

Share Courses Tutorial

Here’s a quick tutorial that walks through how to create the Google Cloud account and get it all set up to share courses. If you have questions or need help with this, the Google Cloud site has lots of handy tutorials to help.

View the tutorial on YouTube.

Resources

• Sign up for an account with Google Cloud.
• Download and install Cloudberry Explorer if you want to use that to manage your courses without using your browser.

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Ideally you have an LMS or using a product like Rise.com to share your e-learning courses. However, there are many times you don’t need a formal management system. For example, you may maintain a professional portfolio where you share courses and work samples.

Amazon S3 is an easy way to do this. And it’s relatively simple : create the account, upload your files, create a URL, and let people access the content. The cost is nominal. Odds are you won’t pay anything and if you do, it’s only a few dollars a year.

Share Courses with Amazon S3 Tutorial

Here’s a quick tutorial that walks through how to create the account and get it all set up. I also show how to use Cloudberry Explorer (another free product) to manage uploading and creating the URL.

View the tutorial on YouTube.

Resources

• Sign up for an account with Amazon S3.
• Download and install Cloudberry Explorer.

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The death of Flash has created a mess for many e-learning developers who have to look for things in older e-learning courses that were published in Flash.

I run into that a lot in the community and with some of my old demos on this blog. It sure is a pain. Not being able to see the file makes it a challenge to recall what was in it or to even know what to look for to update it and republish.

The good news is that I found this thread in the community recently where Sarah shared a link to a Flash player that may help you view old courses. Below is a quick tutorial on how to use it.

Click to view the tutorial.

There’s no guarantee that these links will work forever, I’d download them now, so you have a copy.

Hope that helps those who need to view older Flash courses.

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A guest post by Elizabeth Pawlicki, Training Program Manager, Articulate.

You need a portfolio! Even if you’re not currently looking for a new job, maintaining a portfolio is important as an archive to highlight your work and experience.

In previous posts, we covered what should be in your portfolio and how to build one (with links to some potential sites).

However, I continue to get questions on how to host and manage a portfolio.  That’s what I’ll cover today.

Free Portfolio Site

Recently I came across a free tool called SpreadSimple, which is really cool because it builds websites out of Google Sheets (something many of us already know how to use). You create columns of information, and it takes a single line on a Google Sheet and turns it into a “card” on the site.

Demo Portfolio

I really liked that I didn’t need to do any programming and by adding content to Google Sheets I was able to create a simple website. So, I created a portfolio to test how easy it is to use. You can see it below.

Click here to view the portfolio.

How to Build the Portfolio

Keep in mind, the SpreadSimple site uses Google Sheets to pull in the data for the site. However, it doesn’t host your media. So, you’ll need a place to host your courses and images. There are a number of options here, but I used Amazon S3.

I added the portfolio content to my Google Sheet, added links to courses on Amazon S3, and in no time at all, I had a modern, professional looking web-based portfolio.

I really didn’t need much on my sheet, so I started with my course title, a description, the link to where the course was being hosted in S3, and the link to the course thumbnail, also in S3.

Later, I realized that SpreadSimple allowed for filtering when viewing the completed site, so I added a “Tools” column to my Google Sheet and organized my courses by whether they were built in Storyline 360 or Rise 360.

To give you an idea of just how little you really need to build a site, here’s a behind the scenes look at my Google Sheet.

It’s really easy to build and manage a portfolio this way. Here’s a quick tutorial where you can watch me add a new course to my portfolio just by adding a new line to Google Sheets, filling in the cells, and refreshing the SpreadSimple page.

Click here to view the tutorial.

If you don’t already have a portfolio, give SpreadSimple a try. The service is free if you don’t need to use any of the integrations or set up a custom domain. I found it quick and intuitive.

What do you think?

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A guest post by Elizabeth Pawlicki, Training Program Manager, Articulate.

If you’re a Google Chrome 89+ user you now have access to Live Caption which is an accessibility feature that provides real-time captions for audio that plays through the browser.

This is a really excellent feature for audio that runs through your browser when viewing courses that have videos or narration, especially if the audio doesn’t have captions. Check it out below.

Initial Thoughts on Google Live Caption

I tested the Live Captions on a few different e-learning products that had audio including courses in Storyline 360, Rise 360, and Review 360. The captions worked well, surprisingly well, as you can see in the image below.

I also like that even if you turn off the audio, the captions work. As a user I am no longer constrained by whether or not the audio I am consuming has closed captions built-in to the product. The browser does the heavy lifting.

This is a big step forward for those who require captioned audio. I look forward to how this feature evolves going forward.

How to Access Google Live Caption

• First, make sure you’re using Google Chrome 89 or higher.
• Click the three dots on the top right.
• Then go to Settings and select Advanced>Accessibility.
• Click the toggle for Live Caption.

Once you have enabled Live Caption, you’ll see an option to toggle the captions on and off without going in and out of the settings.

Key Considerations for Google Live Caption

• This tip requires Google Chrome 89 or above. If you have learners who need captions and you can’t provide them in time, you at least have the option to recommend Chrome 89.
• It’s a new feature so there are some limitations such as size, position, and language. However, I assume the feature will be enhanced and my guess is other browsers will play catch up.
• From what I can tell the caption choices in Windows OS don’t seem to impact the captions displayed in the browser.

Google Live Caption is a step in the right direction and a great tool for those who need captions when they’re not provided.

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Here’s a cool PowerPoint hack. I had an illustrated character and needed a font style that matched the illustration style. To get the effect I used PowerPoint to create a title font and changed the format. In this post, I’ll show you how.

Free Illustrations for E-Learning

I used one of the free illustrations from Blush which is a great site for illustrations. The paid account gives you a bunch of options to customize. As you can see, the illustration style is organic and looks a little hand-drawn.

Creating Matching Font Style in PowerPoint

As you can see below, I added a big, bold font for effect. It’s OK. But how do I get a font to match the illustration style?

Convert Font into Vector Graphics

The first step is to convert the type into separate graphics. In PowerPoint, you need at least two objects selected. I created a temporary oval shape.

Then go to Shape Format > Merge Shapes > select Fragment. That converts each letter into a shape that can be modified and edited.

Assign Colors to the Objects

Once the letters are individual shapes, you can fill them with any color and change the line stroke. In this case I color picked the blue from the illustration for the fill and color picked the hair for the line color.

Then I used the format painter to apply the colors to the other letters.

Apply a Sketched Line

Adding the organic, hand-drawn effect is a matter of using one of the sketched line options in PowerPoint. I applied a line style that works.

Then made the line size larger to match the illustration. And format painted onto the other shapes.

Whatever you create can be saved as an image. To do so, select the object and right-click to save as image. Or got to the file saves as options and save the slide itself as an image.

PowerPoint Tutorial

Here’s a video tutorial that walks through these steps in more detail.

There you go: a really easy way to convert the regular type to individual vector shapes that can be edited to match the original illustration.

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Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.