Creating a Digital Design using a Photo

HEY! I recently created a digital design that I used for social media using a photo of me and creating a completely digital background. I’ve been receiving a lot of questions about how I made it, did I hire someone, how long did it take, so the best way to answer all those questions was to create a tutorial. I’m so happy to create this tutorial because it was definitely such a fun design to make.

So here is the design that caught everyone’s attention. I’m going to breakdown the steps I used for this particular design but feel free to make it your own. There are so many different background and elements available on Canva you can have a lot of fun with this.

So first thing you need to log in to your Canva account.

For this one I used a blank Facebook post template, but depending on what you are creating your design for you can use any blank template to get started.

Once you have your blank template the first thing I did was add my photo in, that way I could play around with the elements and make sure they work with the actual photo I wanted to use.

So we have our photo uploaded and now we have to removed the background, so I’m going up to the left corner and choosing edit image and than just click the BG remover and that will get rid of the background

I knew I just wanted a plain pink background for mine, so I’m just going to click off of the photo so that the background is chosen and click the color palette at the top and choose my pink.

So now the fun begins, we get to play in elements. For this branding shoot I decided to do an outdoor shoot but I wanted to find a way to give an office setting, thats what inspired this design. So first I needed to find a desk that would work. So I went to elements and just searched desk. Since I knew I wanted a graphic and not a photo I clicked graphic at the top and just started scrolling.

Since I’m sitting in my photo I knew I had to find either an empty desk or at least half empty desk.  Once I found my desk I just added it in and resized it so it fit well with my photo, I didn’t want the desk outline showing so I clicked on the photo and click position on the top right and move my photo forward. I also noticed my hand was in the air not on the desk so I just rotated the photo slightly.

It was actually in my desk search that I found some of the other elements that I wanted to include. So I’ll just scroll through and find those, I also knew I wanted to add a wall clock so I just typed that into the search bar and found one I liked. I just have to shrink it down some to fit.

So at this point you could be done if you like how it looks but there was a lot of empty space and I love some motivational quotes so I went back to my search bar. I just searched quotes and just scroll until you find one you like that looks good with the background.

I wanted to figure out something for that one little corner that was left, I choose a plant but I could’ve done a bookshelf or anything else. So under elements I searched for floor plant, grabbed the one I liked and placed it in there.

The plant is showing over my photo so I just click on the photo and click position and move it forward so my foot will be in front of the plant.

The last thing I did, and this is really personal preference is I decided to add a little glow around me so that I pop off the picture some. So click on your photo, click edit image, click shadows, than click glow, it defaults as black which actually doesn’t look bad here, I decided to change mine to white. It just gives a little glow to make me stand out more.

And that is it, super easy and the best part about it is you can get really creative, I could’ve put myself in a kitchen, in a board room, really anywhere that I can think of. This is a great way to repurpose photos to get more use out of them for social media. If you weren’t creating your design as we went than I’m sure you are confident and ready to create yours now.