Unlock next-level photo editing

You know a great photo edit when you see one. But getting there yourself, that's usually where it gets complicated. Today, you'll unlock next level photo editing in Canva. You'll walk away with a simple workflow you can use again and again to transform basic shots into stunning edits. We're going to create brand graphics fast with quick adjustments and effects. Then, we'll build a layered campaign image from a simple product shot. Let's go! First up, quick adjustments and effects. Let's say you need to make some on-brand graphics. You've got your branded designs ready, but the imagery isn't quite there yet. We're going to use quick adjustments to bring a basic element into our brand look and feel. So we end up with a polished edit in just a few clicks. We've made a graphics pack for this activity. It's linked in the description, so you can follow along. Or, if you're watching from design school, it'll already be a part of your lesson. Okay, so here's our starting point. We've got this branded design, and we want to add in this chess piece from the elements tab to bring the copy to life. First, let's use quick adjustments. Apply background remover to isolate the night so we can bring it into our edit. Nice! That was fast. Now head to edit and select duotone. We're using the color pickers to set a light blue for the highlights and a dark blue for the shadows. See how it ties it in now? That one move completely shifts the feel. Now, we'll resize and position it so our composition feels balanced. Now the image feels like it belongs in the design, but we can dial up the energy. Let's take it further with effects. Select the horse and head to edit. And then the apps menu here. There's a whole host of filters to choose from, but I'm going to go for bad TV. This will give us an edgy feel straight away, which matches the tone of our brand. Next, I'll add warp on top to bring more distortion. You can then adjust the effects depending on how much drama you want to add. Nice! That looks good. How cool is that? It looks like a fairly complex edit, but it took us maybe 30 seconds to get here with just a few smart moves. And with these moves, you can keep creating. Every edit done with intention becomes a workflow that you can roll out to create more assets in the same visual family. Social tiles, posters, whatever you need. In our case, we can quickly create another graphic in this series by grabbing a new image from the elements tab. Apply background remover, duotone, resize, and adding the same effects. And just like that, we've got something that sits right alongside our first image fast. Now we've got quick adjustments and effects working for us. Let's see what happens when we start layering edits. This time, we've got a product shot, just a basic render of a chair. But what we need is a campaign ready image. To get there, we're going after a look that feels complex. It's layered, textured, almost like a blend of photo editing and graphic design. But we can do it all with a series of considered edits and without ever leaving the Canva photo editor. Here's how. First up, we're going to build a completely new setting for our chair to live in. So let's find a backdrop with some depth and texture. Instead of building one from scratch, we can take an existing image and transform it. Now, I'll select the image, click edit, and head to tools by clicking see all. Choose blur and select whole image, then set the intensity to 45. See how our backdrop now has this soft atmospheric feel? Nice, right? Now we're going to create a proper foreground and background. So separate layers of depth. This is where it starts to get really interesting. Select the image and hit command D to duplicate it. Let's remove the background of this image. Then select magic eraser and use the brush tool to carve out a hill silhouette. This will become our foreground. And here's where layers come in. We take the original image and crop it so only the sky is visible, like this. Then we take our duplicated image and crop it so just the hills are showing. Same move again. Now we'll line them both up to create the illusion of depth. You'll notice there's a black rectangle between the background and the foreground. We'll fill that in shortly. Now let's bring our product into the scene. Here's the product shot that we're working with. To get it to match our edit style, all you need to do is select the foreground layer and hit copy style. Then select the chair to apply those effects instantly. It's cool, huh? Okay, this is coming together now. Our next step is to make sure our product stands out. Let's click edit and reduce the blur intensity so it's a little gentler. Since this is our hero product, we want it to be sharper and not as heavily filtered, but still cohesive with the scene. Okay, nice. That feels better to me. Next, we need the correct color of the chair. The product we're actually launching is green. All we need to do is click on the chair, head to the top toolbar, and tap this color picker here. We can then change the color of the chair using the sliders, like this. Super simple. Now let's position it. Open the positions panel, tap layers, drag the chair so it sits below the foreground layer, then resize and center it in the frame. Great, now it looks like it's a part of the scene. See how our campaign image is coming together? We've got a backdrop, a foreground, and a product. And now let's pull it all together. Select the foreground hill image and hit command D to duplicate it. With the new layer selected, we go to flip and select flip horizontal. Then we move it so it sits just below the seat of the chair. Open the positions panel and drag this new layer to sit below the chair layer. Adjust the position until the composition and the depth feel right. And just like that, two neat layers of hills. And because we've used this blowout effect, we don't need to worry about things being perfectly in focus. It actually masks the detail, which lets us layer and edit faster. That's pretty cool. Now let's add a cloud to add more depth and lean into this setting that we've created. I've grabbed this cloud from the elements tab. To position it, select the cloud layer, open the positions panel, and drag it to sit below the hill layers to build out our background even more. Then we select our foreground layer of hills and use copy style to copy the effects across so the cloud sits naturally in the scene. The last step is to resize and move it around until the composition feels right. We want to create a sense of depth, so adjusting the scale of these elements will help achieve that look. Okay, this is feeling good to me. This is a campaign image, so we need to bring attention back to the product. Here's one of my favorite hacks to add that final special touch to any edit. I'm going to add lens flares from the element library. These will help draw the focus back to the chair and help it stand out in the environment we've created. I'll look for natural highlights on the chair, probably around the edges, then resize the flare and place it on top of one. We can add as many as we want, just duplicate and play with sizing and placement. Less is more here, but depending on the vibe or the mood you're going for, you can go lens flare crazy. For me though, we'll probably stop around here. And for our finishing touch, let's add a grain effect to make our asset feel like an old school film photo and ground the image. Here's a noise texture from elements. It's time to apply it. It's as simple as selecting the noise texture, then bringing down the transparency setting to say 25. Press command D to duplicate, then place it right below the first instance. Close any gaps to create a seamless look. You've just breezed your way through making a complex edit that's ready for you to roll out into all types of assets. Just add a text layer and boom, you've got a poster or a social tile like this one here. As you can see, the end result is a total transformation. But once you know the process and the tools to lean on, you can make huge edits with just a few clicks. And now it's your turn. The next edit is yours. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.