Hiring a professional studio or photographer can be very expensive. But Canva has made this process cheaper and easier. Try it for yourself
Welcome back to the Canva Booster Blog! In this blog post, I am going to show you how to edit and manipulate photos on Canva without a Professional Studio
Marketing and promotion the easy way - no need for a studio!
In recent years, there has been a decline in the photography industry as more consumers own smartphones and they now have the freedom to create their own content online. However, photography and photo editing services also come at a cost, and not every corporation prefers to use Photoshop due to pricing and productivity reasons.
Now, Canva does it all!
Why shoot professional photos?
Shooting professional photos without a studio is vital for three main reasons!
1: It helps you stand out from the crowd
Whether it's a personal brand, or a new product, competitive advantage is the ultimate goal. Thanks to advanced AI features that helps you manipulate photos easily, brands can easily stay on top (i.e. removing unwanted backgrounds, sticking to brand colors etc.).
2: Increase brand awareness
Most consumers these days view social media posts or in-store billboards as they begin to shop. For example, a new product. It’s because of the combined photo editing and design that should create the ‘wow’ factor for a brand, and that consumers can recognize it well. Brand awareness is one of marketing’s common objectives, and that the product or personal brand stands out well in the foreground.
3: First impressions
As mentioned earlier, promoting new products or brands should have that ‘wow’ factor for one good reason. The styling, graphic design and photo editing effects Canva has to offer as compared to competitors. The design itself should create a first impression of what is to be marketed, yet, it should be visually appealing for today’s customers (e.g. Generation Z) as if they want to like the brand or product.
Removing backgrounds the easy way!
This seems to be the hottest trend in photo editing and content creation! To remove backgrounds without having to use Photoshop!
For Canva Pro users, this is easy. But if you are a Free user, you may need to go to apps such as remove.bg.
Another clever method is by using Adobe Express (formerly Adobe Spark). It has recently added smart photo editing features such as removing backgrounds, all for free! I’ve been using it lately for my work, so give yourself a go!
Now, you can play around with your background-less photo
Using the available storage space on Canva (more for Pro users), you can upload your edited photo through the Uploads menu on the left. Simply drag-and-drop.
As per normal, you can either create anything with your background-less photo on Canva, from social media posts and stories to billboards, websites and more! Click on Edit image to apply effects as what you usually do on Photoshop! But in Canva, you can instantly apply trendy effects in one click such as Duotone, Photogenic, Trippy and more!
Don’t forget to add a shadow!
The colors may be too bright or you want the object to stand out in the foreground? Well, you may need to add a shadow behind. Just follow these simple steps:
1: Don’t forget to duplicate the edited image
2: Click on Edit Image
3: Click on Duotone. Apply any effect, but change the Highlights and Shadows colours to darker ones (probably the colour that matches the background well)
4: Then find Adjust and click See all. Increase the value of the Blur. You have already created a shadow!
Optional: You can adjust the transparency a little bit
5: Now, send the shadow image to the back and place it behind the foreground image. Adjust its size if necessary.
6: Your foreground image stands out in your design!
The Project and Behind My Course Progress
The seventh section of the course Canva Next Level: Become a Canva Expert, focuses on this!
From the course, our task is to use photos, remove the background and using it in a Canva design. Here, I have three Canva designs to show which consist of:
Personal branding photo
Adidas Track pants (Draft Billboard)
Instagram/Facebook Meme that is animated
Overall, this has been the most exciting part of the course that I really enjoyed the most. I think it’s always important to stay up to date with trends associated with creating photo/video content, such as removing backgrounds!
Final words
Nowadays, you may not need a professional photo studio to assist in your marketing campaigns. Or maybe you want to edit photos for yourself in order to stand out! Then Canva can almost be like the ‘new Photoshop’ I’d say.
If you want first impressions of your new brand or product, then you need to edit photos at a professional standard. This does mean removing unwanted backgrounds and applying graphical elements from Canva, taking photo editing skills to the next level. There are many ways to remove backgrounds through various apps, or apply drop shadows behind the foreground!
Again, remember to stay in the loop with the latest photo editing trends, which you can find right here. And now, you’ve just created the ‘wow’ factor for your target audience
What photo editing styles do you use? Are there any more ways to remove backgrounds from photos? Would you prefer to use Canva or any other software to shoot professional photos cheaply? Feel free to comment below.
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