6 Most USEFUL Canva Apps I Actually Use (as a content creator) | Canva Tutorial for Beginners

there's so many canva apps out there now so it's easy to miss the real gems I'm going to show you my six favorite free canva apps for creators to make more engaging designs ready let's do this hi mie people it's Natalia and welcome back to my channel where I help you create better content and grow on social media with all the amazing canva features it's so easy to forget this little panel right here but it's full of useful tools I'm here to help you discover some of the most interesting ones so hit that like button subscribe and let's jump straight to canva number one easy Reflections this is a fairly new app allowing you to add natural looking Reflections to your designs sometimes when you create elements may not look as realistic as you'd like them to be or you may want to make them slightly more Dynamic now adding Reflections is a great way to create visual interest in a very simple way to access all of these apps you need to go to the left panel in here and click on the apps panel from here you'll be able to choose some of the ones that are featured because some of the ones I'm discussing are actually trending right now but you can actually search for them so I'm going to go ahead and say easy Reflections and you can see the ca is actually suggesting the ones for me so I'll just click on it and you'll be able to find this one right here with a shoe image now this app has a very simple interface so all you need to do is just to select the element in your design it works for images for now so if I click on this um in his free serum you'll be able to just create a reflection now why am I choosing an element like this as you can see I've added a little bit of a shadow underneath this element in here but it's still not looking as natural there's a marble countertop below but it's just not giving that reflection that we want so I can just click on it create reflection here in the left panel and you'll have all the different options in here so of course the position is set as below as a standard at the top you can see the preview of your reflection it updates in real time so you'll be able to see when we change the other op I for position for offset and for the opacity of course the position naturally is set too below because that's usually where the reflections will be but of course if you want to change it to above to left to right you will be able to do the same thing so for below I'll go back as we're adding this reflection here at the bottom and then for the offset you can see what it does from here I think I'm going to just push it a little bit further cuz I just want a little bit of that reflection and then for this to nicely smooth out till the end and then the opacity from here you'll be able to make it more or less transparent and of course after you add this element actually you will be able to also apply the standard canva transparency option from the canva editor as well so I'm going to just drop this opacity to something around 39 in this case and then I can just click to add to a design and you can see very vaguely you can see that reflection being created for you I'll just make it much much bigger so once I make it smaller you can go in here I'll zoom in like this to be able to just make sure that it matches the size of my bottle above CU this is a very close um close reflection like this let's say this is something that I'm happy with so you can see that reflection is here and I'm just going to go to my layers and reposition it slightly under that shadow so you can already see that this looks natural of course this countertop in the image is actually finishing in here so what I can do from here now is just as with any other image I can just drag by the side to be able to make that reflection cropped and from here you can see like this that this is kind of ending where the countertop is ending and if I'm not happy with how transparent it is I can actually just change that transparency from here to make it even more subtle and voila you can see how natural looking it is of course apart from that you can create more kind of fun effects like this this is just a little promo YouTube style promo I think for thumbnails that I've created with a little bit of that reflection underneath just to create that visual interest now as a side note unfortunately the 45-day links for canva pro trials are going away on the 30th of April afterwards it's all going to revert back to the standard 30-day trial so if you want to make sure that you use all the amazing features for two more extra weeks make sure to claim the offer right now before the 30th of April to be able to use the amazing features for a bit more time app number two gradient generator I'm sure you've already noticed that gradients are really trendy right now they make any design look modern and more visually engaging since they are a lot more Dynamic than solid colors now this is why I love the gradient generator app it allows you to instantly create an aesthetic grainy gradient using a five-color palette and it's amazing for kind of interesting looking backgrounds I also like that it's not just another fat that you have to jump on but an app that actually still lets you St on brand now you can see in here that this is a decent design but it looks a little bit boring and especially with this little kind of purple color above I don't think it looks that good so what I can do is to just go to the apps in here and search for gradient generator you can see the suggestion as before and this is the one that we're looking for it has a nice kind of gradient um image underneath and you can see from here that again we've got the preview at the top and then below we've got a generated color palette now if wanted to actually use my own color palette I would be able to just add my color palette in here as a file to the top of my design and be able to just grab the hex codes for it um it's very useful if you actually have those hex codes visible on your palette I very often create my palettes this way but you are also able to just Inspire Yourself by whatever um canvas suggests so if you click on randomizing here you'll be able to see the different color palettes that it shows you and then from here if you really like a specific palette I might kind of click a few times more just to find something that I really like that matches the vibe then I will be able to just log that palette and then randomize this gradient to create a bit more of that interest and in here you will be able to adjust that noise level so you can see that when you go high it it actually is very very grainy so I would advise you to just stay towards the lower end in here but I do like a bit more of that gritty look so I'll go for something around 16 and then you simp simply click add to a design now unfortunately for now it only generates Square templates so of course you have to keep that in mind while you're generating so that you will have to choose an area if you're creating something like an Instagram post that will be a bit more of a vertical ratio but in here I like what it looks like I can just drag it back to show you what it looks like like this and I really like the effect now I've just entered my hex CES for all of my colors from my own color palette so you can see what it looks like make sure to hit lock color palette before you move away from it and I can just randomize it to see what it generates for me of course I have one color that's pretty pretty dark so if you want to just kind of remove it you can um drag it uh towards the same um panel in here but you can see that it's a lot more delicate a lot more subtle but I really do love that effect so for my um backgrounds like this I would be able to definitely use something like that and of course if I wanted to I can change the color from here now no notice this this is one thing that I really don't like about this app it's a little bit glitchy in a way that if you click away it reverts back to the default so make sure that if you want to keep generating you will be doing it straight from this panel at one time app number three type gradient staying on the subject of gradients have you ever wanted to add gradient to your texting canva but you couldn't find a way well with this new canva app we now have a solution it's called type gradient and it helps you easily add a simple or complex gradient to a text box now it comes with a nice variety of fonts as well so there's a lot to choose from and hopefully it will help you stay on brand as well now right here we've got a minimalistic if not a little bit of a boring design so we can add a little bit more flare to it with the typ gradient app so let's go to the apps and search for type gradient and from here you've got this one it looks like this with a little G so here at the top you can enter your text so you can just paste the quote that I've used for my original then below you will be able to choose your font I have something very specific in mind so I'll just go for Noemi in here and if you see this little um Arrow right here you will be able to access the whole type face and be able to choose other types of fonts from the same family so I'll go for black in this case if you want to go back and search for a specific font that maybe you use as your brand you will be able to do it from here or if you looking for inspiration or something that will just look cool for your design you will be able to just scroll through that panel like this now if in here you will be able to change the alignments you can make it Center or make it aligned to the right or to the left and from here you can of course adjust the line height this is something that we always want to do I went for something a little bit more separate so I'm just trying to emulate what I see on my screen and Below you've got the gradient now naturally as a standard in here you will be able to see the three points in here and this is how that gradient is created so you will be able to just enter the values in here unfortunately just like with the previous app we don't have a Color Picker in here so you will have to remember or have um note of your actual hex codes that you want to use so I'm just going to enter them like this so as you can see I'm just clicking on that preset color frame in here and I will be able to just grab my colors I have them on the second display and just enter that hex code in here and for my last one I can just enter it like this of course don't think that you're just limited to three you will be able to actually just add another point for your gradient by just clicking on that little Spectrum in here and of course you can also move them around to blend them a little bit more differently like this and if you want to delete that point at any stage you'll be able to just delete it from here now you can see down below that we've got um a preview like this and you will also be able to adjust how your actual gradient looks now for now we only have the options to add a linear gradient you can see what the effects are when I do this you will be able to to just kind of move it around like this but there's no option for now to create any circular ones or um anything of that nature any other styles so I'm just going to go ahead and create a simple gradient that is linear from the top to the bottom and I can just hit add to design as you can see in here I can just grab it like this make it bigger it properly aligns I was pretty accurate with my line spacing and I can just go ahead and remove what's underneath and this is what it looks like in here app number four typ craft now gradient text is one thing but how about warping and reshaping your text to convey your message in a more Dynamic engaging way well typec craft is the answer here now we've got this lovely background generated with a gradient generator you can see that I use this app a lot and I really love it so I've just added this gradient in here and now from the apps I can go to the top and search for typecraft um this is the one that I'm looking for this is what it looks looks like and at the very top you've got the text option so go for chill first then you've got the font Choice it looks very similar to the previous ones but I feel like the range for the fonts is much smaller in here but I think I'm just going to stick to this one and Below you will be able to choose the style so you can have just a plain solid fill you can have an unfilled style you may not be able to see it but I'll just make the Border a little bit bigger for you so you can see underneath that this is what it looks like and an outline as well where you've got both the fill and the outline in here again I want to keep the nun in here and I'm just going to go ahead and change the color again we've got the Spectrum no color dropper unfortunately but I'll go for um just a plain white like this you will be able to also enter the hex code and you can see that it just inverted those colors so it can see exactly what's happening on the screen with a preview now the Magic in here happens when you actually use one of those many points in here that you can see when I choose that one and just drag it it just automatically stretches the text like this and you'll be able to just adjust it the way you like now I want my top to be pretty even so I'm just going to try to match it now it's not perfect because I cannot really use shift as I would normally uh do to keep kind of the the ratio in here um so I will have to be a little bit more precise this is something that I don't quite like about this app that you don't have that Precision but again we cannot have everything I will just drag that middle side in here to the top just to try to retain that straight line at the very top now if I drag this one to the bottom because I want to create a bit more of that wave but still keep that line in here a bit more straight and maybe get this a little bit lower like that you can see that I've created a bit of a wave but it's not wavy enough for me so what I can do is to just drag this point and this point actually is attached to the central point and it creates a bit of that curved line with our body bottom so you will be able to adjust it like this so you can see for example in here I've got like almost like a wave in here so I will be able to just then add the element to the design like this and see what it looks like well it's pretty decent but it's maybe not what I was looking for so you can go back and actually amend some of the uh points in here so I want to make it a little bit more straight CU I don't like that it's going kind of a bit too much in here and I will maybe make it a little bit more like that dragged by by the side and I can always go back and update it I'm more happy with this one so let's just stretch it out like this and I'm going to actually just duplicate that element just to save myself some time so I can just duplicate it and you can see that when I jump into typecraft it still has all of those uh settings set for me so I'm just going to change that to out and just like that what I want to do is to revert back to the line to the straight line and of course I will have to be able to do this from here now of course I've changed these lines in here so I will try to retain those lines like this just to keep that straight edge and of course it's a lot of back and forth for this so if you ever feel like um you're kind of playing around with it way too much you can always click reset shape and this way you will be able to go back to the standard settings like this but I I like kind of a bit of more of an organic shape in here so what I'm going to try to match is that line that goes um above in here below this chill so I will go down like this from here and then trying to emulate that wave like this just to keep this one a little bit lower and maybe this one a lot higher let's update that element and you can see that almost kind of fits in here so you can play around with it and just you know Tinker and Fiddle and uh try to make it as perfect as you like I will make sure that I do this for you right now and I'll show you the finished design in just a second and this is what it looks like now it's not perfect of course but this is just demonstrating what you can do and how you can actually warp those shapes uh warp that text to have a bit more of an interesting design app number five can wve now this is another Simple app that has a lot of potential to add visual interest to your designs now can wve is one of the three wave generating apps in the canva ecosystem but I like this one the most now not only does it create Dynamic waves for you with smooth or pointy ends but it also allows you to use gradients with transparency for a more modern look so if you go to abs and search for wave this is where you actually see all three of those apps that I've mentioned at the top but again we're going for can wve because I think this is the one that gives you a lot more power than the other ones now from the top you'll be able to choose a solid type of a wave a gradient wave or a line wave like this this is another great option to just add a bit more of that visual interest now I really want to use gradient for this I really like this effect in here so I can just pull up this color palette in here again you will be able to just choose something from the Spectrum and change it like this or choose some of the recommended colors from below like this or change the hex CES to again something that you're working with now of course in here you will be able to just change the gradient angle like this you can see that also creates that little kind of almost like a shadowy effect which I really really like it's a very aesthetic look and of course you can change the complexity of the waves in here so you can have something a bit more minimalistic and simplistic stick you can have a lot more complexity in those as well and you can also change the height variation so if you're going for something a little bit more smooth you can go for something a bit more low but in here at the top you'll be able to create um a much more Disturbed SE if that makes sense and in here at the top I've missed these two so you can see the curved style and the pointy style that I've mentioned so again if your content is not really that kind of angular if that makes sense you will be able to just choose a curved style and you can also go up to five different layers and if you just keep clicking on it it will just keep regenerating the other wave so you won't be able to go beyond five layers so I can go for something like five let's say uh or maybe three let's keep it a little bit more minimal and from here at the bottom you can also keep generating like this so I can just add that one to my design like this you can see that looks really nice and aesthetic and I can just generate again and maybe add this one so both of these are slightly different and if you can see when you put one on top of the other they will create a bit more of that nice and complex effect you will be able to just flip them as normal and afterwards you can also amend the colors from the top because they're treated as vector graphics so I'm just going to stretch this one out and place it below using my keyboard and just like that with the other one I will be able to just change that style to this and maybe I'll flip f it as well not vertical it's horizontal I will be able to just add that wave like this maybe I want a little bit more of that color pop underneath so I will be able to just make it a little bit smaller and again I'll just send it to the background and this is what it looks like of course it can create so many different effects with it so have a play around and see what you can come up with app number six mockups now last but definitely not least is one of the most useful apps available in canva and it's called mockups in the digital space you so often have to present digital products or lead magnets or showcase your designs on an actual product or device seamlessly now it may not be so easy to do it in canva normally since we don't have transformation tools that would let us skew or distort or warp elements so mockups app is the perfect solution to generate instant professionall look mockups so we've got this promotional Instagram post for an IG audit checklist it's a free downloadable so of course we're kind of promoting a digital product or a lead magnet in this case and I want to add a nice looking phone in here just to present what that checklist would maybe look like so I can go to the apps in here and search for mockups now previously it used to be called smart mockups but now it's just called mockups since it was acquired by canva and from here you will be able to choose all the different types of mockups from you know Graphics tablets watches and I want to go in for a smartphone now there's a variety usually you can see some images more organic images where you will be able to just enter your um image into that whole photo but you also have transparent background mockups like this one for example where you will be able to choose phones in different positions to incorporate in your design and this is exactly what I'm going for in here so I can just choose that image in here and when I just click on it it will just insert it into my design could just make it a little bit bigger maybe and I'll just try to uh make it a little bit different from here so that it fits my design like this let's say this is what it looks like and how I want it to look and I'll just make sure that I'm matching the edge in here and maybe just to make it look a little bit nicer I will go ahead and add a bit of a shadow and from the graphics in here let's go I can just maybe choose this one let's say this is the one that I want to use I'll just make it match that whole element in here reposition it underneath and maybe drop that transparency ever so slight slightly so it just matches the style of course we've got our mockup positioned but how do we actually just add something to it so you can just go to your uploads you can go to the elements anywhere you've got the file that you want to use you will be able to just drag it onto the mockup so let me just find something for that would work for this design now I actually don't have anything that's called an IG audit checklist so just use my Instagram screenshot from my profile and what you can do is to just drag that image on top of that mockup just as you would with a frame with a normal frame in canva let it work its magic and voila you can see how natural it looks it's just a lovely lovely way to present your ideas with mockups now I'd love to know which one of these is your favorite so drop me a comment down below and watch this video next to create more short videos effortlessly using canva AI now don't forget to like this video it really does help my channel a lot so I can bring you more value And subscribe while you're at it of course thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time

Channel: Natalia Kalinska

Views: 12,870

Keywords: content creation tips, canva tutorial, canva, canva for beginners, new canva apps, canva tools, canva news, canva apps, canva design tips, canva design apps review, canva app comparison, canva app tutorial, how to use canva, easy canva tutorial, canva tutorial for beginners, content creation, content creator, canva design tutorial, canva mockups, canva mockupsanva gradient, easy reflections, typecraft, canwave, natalia kalinska, canva pro, canva tips, canva ai

Id: _rjMt3ciyMI

Length: 22min 0sec (1320 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 02 2024