What is Canva?
Canva is an online graphics editor that contains a lot of the functionalities of more complex programs like Photoshop but has a very short learning curve. This means that you can start to create graphics for your website or social media right away – for free!
Over the years I have spent a lot of time and money on Photoshop and Photoshop Elements software and training. But since finding Canva I have not touched either of them!
Is Canva Free?
There is a free version but we recommend the professional version with is available for a small monthly fee.
So why do I recommend Canva
What are the main benefits of Canva?
Templates
When you are looking for inspiration Canva has hundreds of designed templates ready for you to use and modify to fit your brand. There are templates available for any type of graphic that you would need and this is a massive time saver and source of inspiration.
Photos
Finding royalty-free images is vital and tough without Canva. However, the image library with Canva is huge and the search function is excellent. Simply type in what you are looking for and 9 times out of 10 Canva will give you a high-quality image ready to use.
This brings us to the next benefit ….
Background removal
The background removal feature for Canva is one of the best I have used. It is also very quick. I use this feature so many times when putting together graphics and will often create an image using Canva that is just a version of a photo with the background removed.
Sharing with co-workers
This has been a game changer for me when working with clients. You can give them edit rights to images so they can mark up and add comments on what they like and don’t like. I have done menus for local restaurants before and using Canva gives them easy access to change the prices or options on the menu without having to pay a designer to do it for them.
Videos and animations
Need a moving arrow animation or something that turns a boring image into a moving image? Canva has lots of them and they are easy to use and place. You can even use the timings option on multiple images to create a video sequence.
Sharing directly to Social Media
Canva allows you to take your image designs and post them to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or any number of other social media sites. It does not have all the features of a system like Later but it has enough for most people to use instead of the expensive alternative. Canva is cheaper than systems like Later so you are a small user of Later then you may benefit from switching to Canva and getting the above benefits effectively for free.
