VERDICT: Canva online photo editor is not just an ordinary graphical design tool, but a well-structured program that will help you save your time on designing and editing photos. Canva can also boast a simple Instagram-level photo editor.
The impressive number of various ready-made banners, images, hundreds font types and additional elements for your image will ease the picture editing twice. This is something new, something that really deserves your attention despite the cost. It is easy to adjust each tool, and you will not need a lot of time to learn how to use them.
But what were the developers thinking about when they raised the price for the premium version (in which more than 50% of the features are closed), considering the fact that professional Adobe desktop software for graphic design, namely Illustrator and Photoshop, costs $3 cheaper? What’s the reason? I think this isn’t a reasonable choice, even if you are a beginner.
Canva operates on a Flash Player and Adobe Company is going to stop using it. So, how can Canva work in the future? Pixlr and PiZap have long taken actions and developed a new HTML 5 editor, but Canva developers are still silent.
Speaking about the mobile version of Canva, I liked the interface design. It looks really sleek. Without spending a penny, you get fast operation speed, good synchronization with your account, and almost unlimited functionality, including stickers, filters and templates that are closed in the older version.
You will have to work exclusively with JPG images. It is definitely not the best free photo editor, but can be recommended to use for designing.
Photo editor Canva is an extremely easy-to-use online photo editor, which will allow you to create banners, logos, and so on. There is also a great variety of ready-made layouts to help you get started more quickly. Now we’ll tell you about the main functions of the Canva free photo editor, and we'll see what it is capable of.
The design of the interface is not done in a provoking way, but on the contrary, there is nothing redundant, and only the necessary functions are available. The first thing you should do while working with the Canva free photo editor is to add the photo. In this case, it can be uploaded from your computer, or you can work with the finished image.
This photo editor hasn’t become a special case, and it does not support the RAW format, like many other online services. When you try to upload some RAW files, there will be probably an error. So, you’ll have to work exclusively with JPG images.
There are 6 available functions, such as the adjustment of filters, adjustment of shadows, contrast, and saturation, cropping, resizing, rotating and flipping.
The number of filters is very small and cannot be expanded. In addition, the filter is not customizable; it means that you cannot adjust the tone or color saturation. There is no opportunity to change some setting.
An adjustment tool provides only the sliders for adjusting shadows, contrast, and saturation. It’s quite a strange solution of the developers because now almost every photo editor features more tools such as exposure, sharpen, vibrance, colors, hue & saturation, curves, clone tool and much more. Well, it seems like the developers decided not to bother and limit the functionality.
Crop and Resize are very important tools for the photo editing. You can change the aspect ratio and change the resolution of your photo as well.
The rotate and flip tools allow you to rotate an image to one side, reflecting it.
Having edited the image, you’ll be offered to save it to the computer or to your account. Here you can store the photos, create new images or improve the ready-made templates. Teamwork is also welcomed.
In other words, you can create a team and work on the project together, upload the finished work or sketches to the account, which, by the way, includes an online disk. However, not everything is so pleasant, as it seems. The function mentioned above is paid.
When you select such tab as Create Design, Canva photo editor online offers you to choose the type of your future work, namely the direction for your work, what is the aim of creating the banner or something else.
You have an unlimited choice, whether it’s the social networks, such as Instagram, Facebook, or the resume for work, photo collage of family pictures, the menu for your restaurant or a cafe-bar, logo of your product and much more. Regardless of the fact that there is a variety of themes, you can create your own design and add it for the common use.
Canva photo collage editor offers thousands of ready-made banners that you can edit or download. The database is collected not only from more than 13 sites like Canva but also has its own, unique designs that are updated every day. For creating your own design, you’ll have an advanced search, text adjustment, and a great variety of elements.
The search is worth mentioning. In fact, the search of the Canva photo editor is very easy to use. Enter the right word or phrase and get hundreds of different ready-made layouts, which can be adjusted.
What is this element for? In this panel, you will see 3 lines, namely: All, Photos, and Graphics. The “All” field includes images with the words you’ve already selected, all sorts of effects, and graphic elements. Here you can find both free and paid content to use.
The “Photos” tab is made just for you to select the desired image, so you would not be distracted by the unnecessary elements. The “Graphics” tab offers a collection of all kinds of previously made graphic images that you can choose for your banner (a graph showing rise or decline, a world map or a simple sign pointing in any direction).
Canva photo word editor features different fonts collected from the Internet as well as fonts added by users. Here you can choose any font to your liking. The choice is really great. Besides, you can write each word in a different font, and edit it after saving. Moreover, it is possible to preview how a font looks within your design before making a selection. Canva also offers font pairing suggestions, helping users combine fonts that harmonize well together for a polished design.
This function has been significantly improved. Thus, the application allows you to save the image in several ways: save it to your PC or publish it, share the ready-made layout in various social networks, send it to the mail, or send it for printing directly from the app. Pre-attaching an account to the photo editor allows you to use these functions in one click.
Canva Photo Editor mobile is as good as the online one according to many free logo maker reviews on the official website. You can log in from the account you use with the web version. In addition, all the saved work will be synchronized with your account and available for viewing as well as for further editing with the help of your smartphone.
After you’ve selected an image, use the search or adding a personal photo. You’ll see a very similar functions, namely the same ones that the web version of the photo editor has. Images, Colors, and Filters. The Colors function is a new one. It allows you to choose the color of the background when creating a personal project.
In the Filters tab, you will have a number of built-in filters, which can be supplemented by changing the color saturation, tone, and the exposure.
You can use a ready-made palette of 10 colors, or create a new color, which will be a fascinating activity as you can use not only the available palette, adjust the tone as well.
The Text tab provides hundreds of different fonts, which you can also add and edit, as well as write each word with a different font.
The Graphics tab has the same elements that you can add to your image. Canva also gives you an opportunity to create a personal graphic symbol, which you can add to the library and use it in the future.
It offers you to save the photo to your smartphone and to your account what gives you a chance to look at the photo using your computer. In addition, you can share the finished result in the social networks directly from the app, or you can send it to the mail or to a printer.
The Canva photo editor app is free, but there is also a paid version – Canva for Work, which requires a monthly subscription fee of $12.95. What exactly is a paid version? It’s a platform that is created for the teamwork. In other words, a service in which several people can work simultaneously on an image or create a website design from different computers.
After that, they can upload and save the finished results on the online storage provided by Canva. It is quite a convenient way out, as you will not have to engage extra expenses, such as buying a Google disk for storing edits or finished images.