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Microsoft Designer app is the latest Canva rival- Here's what it can do
So, when the Microsoft Designer app finally made it to iOS and Android as a public release, I hopped onto it to check what it can do. The short answer: there's a big focus on prompts here, and that is how you 'create' your own templates, making it more personalised than its rivals. However, Canva can do that too with the Magic Studio feature. More on that later. The major benefit that apps like Canva bring to the table is their myriad of templates, which act as a catalyst in your design process. This is where I feel generative AI really comes in clutch to create something original quickly. Yes, you may see repeated designs, but it is still better than working with generic, already available templates. Microsoft Designer emphasises this as a feature. Right when you open the app, you see options to create stickers, images, invitations, social posts, and more. I was quick to see how this app would help me create social posts. As soon as you tap, you are greeted with an input box where you can tell Designer what to create and whether you want images to go along with it. For instance, I asked it to create a series of five slides for an Instagram post, detailing the latest features of the newly announced Canon EOS R5 Mark II. After submitting the images and adding details, it created a perfectly legible post where I could add whatever details I deemed fit. I can even tap an individual slide and fine-tune it to my needs. This includes removing and adding images, removing backgrounds from images, and adding new lines of text. In a way, it is the ideal way to start creating quick and easy designs for your day-to-day life. By now, you would have guessed it -- Designer can also generate images for you, just like other AI-based apps like Microsoft's own Copilot and Google Gemini. I submitted the following prompt: "Create a watercolour-style image of a flying pug, loaded with colourful candy. The dog has a cape and glasses." Here's what I got from the Designer app. I compared it with what I could get from Google Gemini using the same prompt, but the results were similar, and it is subjective which result you prefer. But, the fact that you can quickly generate an image in the Designer app and add it to your design is where the real value lies. Remember, you can get similar images in Microsoft's Copilot as well; it's just that there you have a complete suite of other generative AI features, similar to what you get with something like ChatGPT, which is also based on the GPT family of Large Language Models (LLMs). It goes without saying, in its current form, Canva is the better and more feature-rich app. You can simply do a lot more with it. However, the Designer app is no slouch either, as it can let you quickly create designs, with prompt-based generation being a key feature. It should also be noted that most of the features on Canva are paid, requiring a Canva Pro subscription. With Designer, you get 15 free boosts daily for image generation, and if you buy a Copilot Pro subscription, you can get 100. This means functionalities such as removing backgrounds from images or blurring backgrounds to create a "Portrait mode" style image are free with Microsoft Designer, whereas they are not with Canva. Overall, for my work, Canva will still be the way to go, at least for the foreseeable future, until Microsoft Designer adds better text-formatting options. However, it cannot be denied that it offers several fun-to-use features like AI avatars and restyling images, some of which are similar to the headliner features of Samsung's Galaxy AI. So yes, it has a use case, and I'll try to use it in parallel with Canva for the mundane. Competition is always appreciated, and I'm eager to see what Microsoft Designer brings in the near future.
Hindustan Times
Tue, 23 Jul, 6:00 AM UTC
Innovation by Design 2024: Canva's AI tools are leading a creative revolution - Fast Company
Two years ago, Canva's quick embrace of artificial intelligence surprised everyone. Indeed, the company's adoption of the technology was so swift and effectively implemented that it nabbed an Innovation by Design Award in 2023 for design company of the year. Now, the company's renewed Magic Studio AI toolbox is the winner of Fast Company's 2024 Innovation by Design Awards in artificial intelligence. Magic Studio AI has been redesigned as part of Canva's total UX overhaul, which CEO Melanie Perkins calls the company's biggest release ever. "The AI ecosystem is very fragmented," Perkins says. "New tools are popping up every other day, and Canva wants to make complex things simple -- that's our core mission." Magic Studio integrates a suite of 10 company-developed AI tools plus more than 50 third-party solutions -- made thanks to Canva's open developer API -- in one place. It can basically do anything you want automagically. Instantly convert any design, say a whiteboard of ideas, into a blog post? A single click would do, thank you very much. Generate images with OpenAI Dall-e or video in different styles using the most advanced video-generation AI model by Runway? Got it. Conjure complete, contextually accurate designs, like presentations, videos, or social posts, using a model trained on work commissioned to experts? Yep. Canva's AI can write copy in your own voice, remove backgrounds in photos, change graphic styles, expand photos, clean audio of background noise, generate voice-overs, and basically do anything you would expect from one of the hundreds of separate online tools, each with their own different subscription price.
Fast Company
Tue, 23 Jul, 12:02 PM UTC
These Are My Top 5 Canva AI Tools: Here's Why
I Tried 3 Professional AI Headshot Generators: This One Was Best Quick LinksResize & Magic Switch Translate Magic Write Magic Morph Grab Text Key Takeaways Canva's Magic Studio offers AI tools like Resize & Magic Switch for easy resizing of designs. Magic Translate helps translate designs while retaining style and choosing a tone. Magic Write offers tools for improving writing, and Canva's Magic Morph adds dimensions to designs. Canva's Magic Studio offers great ways to improve your Canva designs using AI. While you can do almost anything with AI, these are my favorite Canva AI tools and are often my go-to options when designing. 1 Resize & Magic Switch When making designs for multiple purposes, such as a variety of social media assets or posters and digital ads, it can be a huge hassle to resize and recompose your designs for all the many formats. Canva's Magic Switch and Resize tools let you resize your designs for other size formats at the click of a button. Using AI, this tool recomposes your design in a way that works best with your newly chosen format -- of course, you may still need to edit element positions to make it perfect. If you're using Canva for more than just a small creative hobby, then access to Magic Switch and Resize can be a brilliant reason to upgrade from Canva Free to Canva Pro. While it's not an AI tool specifically, Canva's Docs to Decks feature offers a similar result when reformatting your design documents into presentation decks. Once your design is finished, just select Resize & Magic Switch and select the boxes -- or add a custom size -- for the design sizes you require, and resize them. Open them after resizing to finalize the placement of elements before you save them. 2 Translate Canva introduced Magic Translate as part of its AI tool library in 2023. Using AI to translate designs can save you a lot of time and money when creating multilingual designs; however, you should always check the results with a native speaker to ensure the translation sends the right message. I like the Magic Translate tool because it not only translates entire documents while in-keeping with your design style, but you can also choose a tone of voice to ensure your translation gives the right message for your brand's design. While other tones may be correct in terms of translation itself, there are many languages that use more specific terminology to change entire meanings of phrases based on tone alone. You can find the Translate feature by selecting a text box, then selecting Resize & Magic Switch > Translate. There are over 130 languages to choose from, with Canva implementing more with every update. Although Magic Translate is a Canva Pro tool, Canva Free users can use it with one of their 50 free AI credits. These credits can be used on some -- but not all -- of Canva's AI tools. 3 Magic Write Canva Magic Write offers a whole host of tools to improve or transform your writing. You can find these tools either by selecting the text box, then selecting Magic Write, or by selecting the Quick Actions button in the bottom right corner -- which uses the / key as a keyboard shortcut. Some of the Magic Write tool offerings are: Changing the tone of writing Shortening or synthesizing your writing Rewriting your words Automatically fixing spelling errors One of the best ways to use Magic Write, if you are not a confident writer yourself, is by using the Custom Prompt option. This works similarly to AI generators like ChatGPT and you can use these helpful AI chat prompts. Whether you need help giving a little sparkle to your writing or you want help writing the entire copy from scratch, Canva's Magic Write tool offers different ways you can use it to boost your Canva designs. I think this is a helpful tool for a huge number of people. Some parts of this tool are offered under Canva's free plan, too. 4 Magic Morph Canva's Magic Morph works similarly to Adobe Firefly's AI font generation tool. You can use some of the same ideas for Firefly's font generator tool when using Canva's Magic Morph tool and get some very cool results. It can be found under the Quick Actions (/) or within the extensive list of Canva's apps. This is a Pro tool. To use it, select an element or text from your design and then open Magic Morph. You can also add an element from Magic Morph if you don't already have one you want to use. Then type a prompt into the text box, such as "red foil balloon", and select Magic Morph to generate. You'll receive four results, and you can choose the best one or even regenerate more. I think using Magic Morph in Canva is a great way to add extra dimensions to your Canva designs. I think it's best used on text, which is often flat, but it can also be used on other elements. Magic Morph makes designs look more detailed than what Canva offers with its typical non-AI design tools. Since Canva isn't an image manipulation software like Adobe Photoshop, Magic Morph offers a way to include image manipulation-style elements, and it just takes a few seconds for great results. 5 Grab Text Canva's Grab Text tool is one of my favorite Canva offerings. It is another Canva Pro feature, so you'll need a Canva Pro subscription or free trial to use it, but I think it's a tool that's worth the money. My favorite use of Grab Text is after having generated an AI image with text in it. Most AI image generators cannot generate readable text in the English language. Grab Text is the best tool for fixing AI gibberish text that I've found, but you can also use it for regular text in created Canva projects or uploaded photos. Select the image with text and choose Edit Image > Grab Text. This Canva AI tool identifies any text in an image, regardless of language, including AI gibberish which isn't in any human language at all, and turns it into an editable element. This means you can rewrite text in photographs or remove text entirely. Canva's AI does a great job of identifying the font -- or finding a similar one if you want to rewrite the text. It also works very well to fill in the space if you'd rather remove the text entirely. This tool saves so much time, whereas using something like Adobe Photoshop will take several minutes. There are many ways you can use Canva's AI tools to improve your images, even though most tools are under the Pro subscription, you may save money versus buying expensive subscriptions to Adobe or other software. These five tools are not an exhaustive list of Canva's AI tools. Many of its other AI tools found within the Magic Studio or Canva Apps are fun to use and helpful too. There are image and video generators, including Magic Design, which can compose entire designs based on a text prompt alone. There's also Magic Animate, Magic Expand, or Magic Edit to name a few. In a world where almost all creative software presents AI tools, these five are my favorite ones I deem worthwhile to choose Canva Pro for.
MakeUseOf
Fri, 9 Aug, 8:07 PM UTC
AI Design Tool Revolutionizes Creative Process with Single-Prompt Generation
A new AI-powered design tool allows users to create complex designs with a single text prompt. This innovative platform, called AI Playground, is transforming the way designers and non-designers approach creative projects.
2 Sources
Fri, 6 Sept, 4:04 PM UTC
How to Create AI Images in Canva
Katelyn is a writer with CNET covering social media, AI and online services. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in media and journalism. You can often find her with a novel and an iced coffee during her time off. Canva is one of my favorite graphic design programs. It's extremely user-friendly -- even for those of us who are less artistically inclined -- and offers a robust free plan that's perfect for most budgets. Like a lot of digital creative services, Canva received an artificial intelligence makeover in the past year. It has a full suite of AI features that let you easily generate text, photos and videos. Those upgrades include Magic Media, the company's AI image generator. You can test out Canva's AI image generator for free, but you'll have to pay up to get access to all its AI tools, which will set you back $120 per year on the Pro plan. I've spent a lot of time with Magic Media, and it's certainly a good option for beginners. But if you want to use a different program, you can try out OpenAI's Dall-E and Google's Imagen image generators in your Canva projects, too. No matter what app you choose, make sure you review the app's privacy policy. Canva automatically opts you out of letting it train its AI on your content, but OpenAI and Google have separate policies that could let it train on your work. With Canva's Magic Media, you get 50 photo and five video lifetime credits on the free plan, and you'll need to be careful about how you spend them. Each time you generate a batch of images, it will deduct a credit. And Canva's not the most prompt-adherent generator I've tested -- simpler is better with Canva -- so you'll be generating a lot to get the image you're envisioning. Here's what you need to know about generating AI images in Canva. To get started generating images, you'll need to pull up the Magic Media app. Here's how. You can also follow those steps to search and open the apps for Dall-E and Imagen. When you click the icon, it will automatically open the editing window for Magic Media. You'll be able to find it easier going forward because it will move the app to the bottom of your left side menu. Magic Media is pretty self-explanatory and easy to use. Enter your prompt in the query box, and Canva automatically keeps track of your credits underneath the box. Once you insert an AI image into your project, it's added to your library and uploads tab so you can easily access it across different project files. Once an image is in your library, you can use it as many times as you like without deducing additional credits. Canva images are not watermarked, so you're going to want to take extra care to disclose that your projects have AI-generated content. If you're struggling to bring your artistic vision to life, check out my tips on writing the best AI image prompt. You can peruse my full review of Canva Magic Media for more tips and tricks.
CNET
Wed, 25 Sept, 2:20 PM UTC
