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Hi there friend,

When I was in my early twenties I started a boutique design and development agency with a few friends. I learned all sorts of things, made every mistake I possibly could, and developed a deep belief that imagery has a huge impact on the way people perceive you and whether they’ll ultimately buy from you.

So when I go to write a newsletter, I’m really conscious of the images I use. I want them to be clear and helpful, but also reinforce the fact that I know what I’m talking about.

But I don’t have all the time in the world to fiddle with my imagery, so I needed to find something that would let me quickly edit and refine images without pulling me into the black hole of Photoshop.

Enter Canva, a super simple - but surprisingly powerful image creation tool. Canva is so helpful that we built it right into our editors so you can create or edit images with the push of a button.

I’m going to introduce you to some of the most helpful ways I use Canva to edit the images in my email (in future editions I’ll walk through creating new images in Canva and using Canva’s AI features to do some absolutely wild things).

Masking Images in Shapes

One of my favorite ways to add some character to images in my newsletters is to mask them in a funky shape. People are used to square and rectangular images (boring), so mixing it up is a good way to actually engage people’s brains.

I’d urge a little restraint here. Not every image needs to be masked, and if you do choose to mask, stick to one or two funky shapes unless your brand is really off the wall.

One really common use case for masking is putting a headshot for your signature in a circular mask. This makes them feel far less harsh than a square or rectangular image.

Adding Filters

I admit it. I’m a filter guy.

Maybe it goes back to my experience with the early days of Instagram, but I just can’t help myself.

It’s really easy to go overboard with some of the wackier filters (I’m looking at you, Heatwave); but used sparingly filters can be a quick and easy way to brighten, adjust temperature, or even out contrast without having to fiddle with lots of inputs.

However, if you want to fiddle with lots of inputs, there’s always…

Image Correction

Canva’s image correction tools are some of my favorite editing tools out there. They somehow give you a lot of control without giving you so many options that you’re overwhelmed. They’ve boiled things down to give you the right controls.

One particularly helpful piece of these tools is the ability to adjust background and foreground settings independently, which you can use to make the products or people in your images really pop.

And when all else fails, the trusty old “Auto-adjust” button is there to get you started.

Effects

Canva’s effects have limited usefulness IMO (although the “Auto Focus” effect can help clean up your pictures). There is one effect I think can be useful if you have a strong brand color palette.

Duotone changes your picture into shades of two colors (as the name implies). This could be used to set a pretty powerful aesthetic if you’re confident enough in your colors and committed to them.

Retouching

Did I mention that I’m a filter guy? I’m on a heck of a lot of video calls and I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve been spoiled by face smoothing filters in tools like Google Meet and Zoom.

Canva’s got me covered again here, with a simple face retouching filter that hasn’t failed me yet.

All of this is just scratching the surface of what’s possible with Canva, without ever leaving AWeber. Next week, I’ll be writing about how to create graphics from scratch in Canva, and how to use their AI features to do things you never thought possible with the images you have.

Reply to let me know your favorite Canva tips!

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As always, thanks for reading!

- Chris V. and the rest of the AWeber team

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