Yes, almost all the images on my blog and in the SlideMagic template bank are in black and white. Why?
SlideMagic uses (and encourages you to use) a sober colour scheme: basically different levels of grey with one accent colour that should match the dominant colour in your logo. This is a pragmatic choice. SlideMagic is all about business presentations, not art. More colours require additional design skills to get it right. Too many colours can make a slide busy, can create inconsistencies between slides, make the brand identity of your slide weaker. Yes, a pro designer can get it right, and maybe the amateur as well, but - and that is a very important but - it just adds to the time it takes to create your deck. And SlideMagic is all about speed. One accent colour and greys always looks good.
Full colour images introduce colours to your slide that might not always match your colour scheme. Colour schemes of images can also vary wildly between images, creating inconsistent slides. You often see that professional-grade designs (ads, brochures, web sites) use images that have been selected based on their colour profile. The amateur slide designer does not have time for this. That’s why keeping things black and white solves this issue: images blend in, and images look consistent.
Should all images always be black and white? Absolutely not. Personally, I would go for anonymous images to be black and white, but depictions of real things in full colour; your product, your app screen, your prototype.
And.. unlike the downloadable slides in PowerPoint format, the slides in .magic format can be set back to colour, I just flipped the B&W toggle to grey for the moment. Direct PowerPoint downloads are in black and white only. But this might be your excuse to start using the SlideMagic app, and convert to PowerPoint (with full colour images) if you have to later on in the design process.
Photo by Kensuke Saito Surf Photography on Unsplash