Canva is Getting a Lot More Powerful for Designers and Editors
Canva, an easy-to-use design platform, is adding a wealth of new features to the service today. From artificial intelligence-powered (AI) editing tools, to better photo editing options, to new video editing features, there is a lot to unpack.
The Australia-based software company says that is has surpassed the 155 million monthly active user mark, an increase from the 100 million it touted last October. Additionally, the company says that 15 billion designs have been created using Canva, with two billion of those coming in the last six months alone.
And as Adobe is retooling its enterprise options to better compete against Canva’s dominance in the space, Canva today shows that it hasn’t just been resting on its laurels with the announcement of a ton of new features that it says are aimed at supporting enterprise with particular focus on marketing and creative teams.
Magic Design
Canva’s first addition is called Magic Design, which is purpose-built to help designers who are struggling with a creative rut dig themselves out of it. After supplying an image to the platform, Magic Design pulls together a curated selection of templates that makes it easier to visualize a design and create something unique.
The company says that it’s not just templates though, as Magic Design can curate a selection of ideal fonts, graphics, and styles to turn prompts into a finished product. Designers can customize these to their liking, or just finish them off with a few personal touches.
Translate
Canva’s next feature is made for teams that operate in multiple countries. Translate is a new feature that instantly converts the text of a document or a design to any of over 100 languages available on the platform.
“With the push of a button, Translate empowers you to connect with audiences around the world with the confidence your message will be heard loud and clear,” the company says.
“Whether you’re looking to localize content, an employee sharing a business plan with a global team, or a nonprofit trying to get your campaign to a wider audience, Translate makes it easier than ever to bridge language barriers and share your content in a way that is accessible to billions of people.”
Enhancements to Magic Write
Canva is adding to Magic Write, it’s AI-powered copywriting assistant, by making it available outside of Canva Docs and available in every type of design that can be done on the platform, from websites to presentations, video, and more.
The company is also adding the ability for Magic Write to generate content based on existing text.
“With just a simple prompt, you can expand, summarize or rewrite text: turn a long document into an executive summary, make a confident tone more friendly, or broaden a sentence into a paragraph for an essay,” Canva explains.
“We’ve also added autofill capabilities, meaning Magic Write can generate new text to complete a semi-finished design. All of this is also now available in 19 languages, and we’re now rolling it out for teachers and school administrators too.”
Enhanced Photo Editing Tools
Canva already has reasonably powerful photo editing tools, but the company is adding to them today with the ability to add, remove, or change specific parts of an image quickly. Magic Edit can transform an image based on a set of instructions. For example, editors can highlight an area and ask the platform to replace an object with another object that is given a text description, basically combining traditional photo editing with generative AI — a feature it added to the platform last November.
The company is also adding a new tool called Magic Eraser, which is basically Canva’s version of content-aware fill.
Canva’s photo editing tools can now also differentiate between the foreground and the background, allowing editors to independently edit these areas of an image.
The company says these new features are part of a “broad revamp” of Canva’s Photo Editor that also includes new and updated features like Auto Crop, Auto Rotate, and Auto Adjust.
Beat Sync and Animation
On the video editing front, Canva has added a new feature called Beat Sync, which allows editors to automatically align clips to the beat of given music which quickly ups the production value of videos and makes them appear more professional.
“Beat Sync identifies the beats within a song and converts them to snap points that automatically sync with what’s happening on screen. Our music library includes thousands of songs in every genre, or you can upload your own, so you can choose the exact tune to suit your next video,” Canva explains.
“Beat Sync takes one of the toughest parts of video editing and makes it automatic. But if you’re the type who wants more control, fear not — you can easily move your clips around using manual adjustments to snap them to a different beat.”
Canva is also adding a Create an Animation feature, which lets editors create animated videos by just dragging elements across the screen to record the path that they want them to follow. It’s simple and rudimentary, but Canva says that editors can record animations for any element including graphics, photos, frames, or videos.
All of these changes and more are coming to Canva’s Visual Worksuite starting today.
Image credits: Canva
