How to Outline an Image in Canva

Easy-to-follow Canva Tutorial

If you are a regular visitor to my blog, by now you would know that I am absolutely obsessed with Canva. I use it daily to create and design everything from YouTube video thumbnails, Pinterest pins, Blog Post cover images, and Instagram carousels.

Over time, one of Canva’s top features that I have grown to highly appreciate is the Image Outline feature. A few months ago, I even made a YouTube tutorial video on the topic

If you are interested in learning How to Outline an Image in Canva, check out the detailed and guided steps below.

Step 1

Head to Canva’s Official Website and open a blank canvas of any size.

It doesn’t matter if you provide Canva with customized dimensions for the blank canvas or if you select one of the many default blank canvas options from Canva’s home page catalogue.

For those interested, the blank canvas size I selected when making this guide was 1000 x 622 px.

Step 2

Pick the image you want to use in your design from Canva’s “Elements” gallery, or “Upload” a personal image from your device to Canva.

NB: If you are not uploading your own PNG image with a transparent background to Canva to use when following this guide, it is best to select an image from Canva’s gallery that is a “Cut-out” (i.e. has a transparent background).

For the purposes of this tutorial, I’m using a FREE Canva image. If you want to use the same image while following this tutorial, search for Canva Brand Code Set: set:nAEeEBOQPRs using the “Elements” search bar. You can also find this FREE image by typing, “Vintage Woman Fashion“, in the “Elements” search bar, then filtering your search results to show “Cut-outs only” in the “Controls” menu.

Step 3

Drag the image you chose for your design from the sidebar over to the blank canvas.

At this stage, you can change the background color of the blank canvas to another color or opt to let the background remain in the default white color. For the purposes of this tutorial I will be changing the background color to “F39896″ which is one of my blog’s brand colors. See image below.

Step 4

Select the chosen image by clicking on it. When the secondary menu then appears at the top of the page, click on “Edit Image“. This will cause the “Search Effect” sidebar to pop up on the left sidebar.

Step 5

Type the word “shadows” in the “Search Effect” bar and click on the “Shadows” square once it pops up in the sidebar to open it’s menu.

Next, in the “Shadow” effect menu, click on the center of the “Glow” square option twice. The first click will cause a minor glow effect to appear around the image on the canvas, while the second click will allow you to select the three (3) horizontal lines in the center of the “Glow” square, labelled as “see controls”.

Once you can access the controls for the “Glow” effect, make the following adjustments:

• Change the Glow size level to “7”.
• Change the Glow transparency level to “95”.
• Change the Glow blur level to “0”.
• Change the default Glow color from Black to any color that you would like to use to highlight your image. For the purposes of this tutorial I will be using the color “white” to outline my image.

NB: These chosen “Glow” levels are not set in stone and can easily be adjusted to suit your preferences.

Step 6

Once you are pleased with the size, transparency, and blur levels, click “Apply” at the bottom of the sidebar menu. This will complete the Image Outline process.

Step 7 (Optional Step)

You can repeat this above steps from 1 – 6 to create a secondary outline around your image in a different color, just like I did in the feature image for this blog post.

To download the Outlined Image to your device, click “Share” in the top right corner before clicking “Download” twice.

YouTube Tutorial

Here’s the tutorial on how to outline in Canva from my official YouTube channel below.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading this explanatory guide on, “How to Outline an Image in Canva”. I hope that each step was easy to follow and that you enjoy using this Canva feature in your future designs.

As always, don’t forget to pin this post on Pinterest and share across Social Media!

Suggested Readings

• Canva Pro Invitation Link
• How to Make Money with Canva
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• Follow Us On Instagram Template
• Dog Instagram Story Templates
• 6 Best Content Design Tools (Spectacular Free & Paid Options)

Disclaimer

The above blog post contains affiliate links for Canva. These affiliate links support content creators like me and enable us to deliver informative content to you for free. The complete Disclaimer for this website may be found here.
~ Digital Creator Domz