If you’re using a template in Canva to create your own unique design for things like posters, book covers or presentations, then perhaps you’re also thinking about including an image into the template. 

Canva is essentially like Photoshop when it comes to being able to edit images. However, it’s more basic and much easier to use.

This is because you don’t necessarily require any in-depth or extensive knowledge of photo editing to be able to use it well and make your creation look good. You can personalize whichever kind of template you’re working on.

So, as well as being able to choose from a pre-made photo library on the platform, you can also upload and add your own photos using a simple drag and drop interface. Once this is done, you can then edit them easily.

One of the best features of photo editing on the platform involves being able to blur your image. With this, you can even choose to just blur the edges, giving a cool effect to your photo. 

Read on to find out more about Canva and how to go about giving a fade-away effect to the edges of your image whilst editing a photograph on there! 

 

If you’ve never used Canva before, then you’ve definitely been missing out! It’s basically a graphic design platform offering you an incredible variety of template categories to choose from, so you can edit and design your own things for either professional or recreational use. 

The platform is used for items like business cards, lesson plans, resumes, invitations, bookmarks, invoices, and even Instagram posts – it pretty much has a template for anything you can think of, with over 50,000 different ones to choose from. 

You can use the site for free and sign up with your Google or Facebook account, whilst still being able to select a wide range of templates.

But if you want to access premium tools and content, including the blur tool, you will need to choose to upgrade to Canva Pro or Canva for Enterprise.

The subscription for Canva Pro costs $12.99 a month, which isn’t too bad if you’re going to use it often.

Can You Blur An Image On Canva?

Yes, you can most definitely blur an image using Canva! 

You can choose to experiment with either your own photos or with images from the photo library on Canva. Once you’ve chosen which photo you want to blur, simply select the photo, click Filter, go to Advanced Options, and then slide to the right to blur the photo or to the left to sharpen it. 

You can also choose to use a blurred image just for your background, therefore making a more creative design. This will then focus the attention onto the central element of the picture. 

Added to that, you can even choose to blur a face in a photo (for privacy reasons, for example), blur any part of a photo at all, or blur the edges of a photo.

All of this will help you to get your image to end up looking like a stunning piece of artwork – and all with such minimal effort! 

How Do I Blur The Edges Of A Photo In Canva?

Blurring the edges of an image is an artistic technique – frequently used in advertising and marketing – designed to put emphasis and focus on the main subject of the image by essentially blurring out the background ‘noise’ that might otherwise drag people’s attention away from the central element of the photo. 

Not only does it achieve this, but it also makes the image look more imaginative and artistic, which, in turn, will attract more people into viewing it. 

Because only the edges are affected, blurring them won’t affect the quality of the rest of the photo, so there’s no need to worry about any of that! Below is a short and easy step-by-step guide on how exactly to blur the edges of a photo using Canva. 

Step 1

The first step is to simply select whichever photo you want to edit – either upload your own or choose one from the photo library on Canva – and add it to a blank page.

Step 2

Click the Edit Image button, and you will see a variety of photo effect options come up in the menu on the left-hand side. Scroll down until you see the Blur app option, which, if you’ve tried to use it before, will appear under Tools.

But, if not, it will probably be at the very bottom, so scroll all the way down until you come across it. 

Step 3

Once you’ve clicked on the Blur app, it will activate the image feature. After you’ve done that, you have to click on the option that says Blur again, which will appear inside the app menu. 

Step 4

Now you’ve selected the Blur button, a settings menu will appear where you can change the intensity, spread, and brush size of the blur effect.

Try the default settings first if you’re unsure, and go back and adjust them later if you need to, for example a smaller brush size will probably be necessary if the area you need to edit is particularly small. 

Step 5 

Now it’s time to get blurring! To do this, left-click your mouse and drag the cursor to hover it over the area you want to blur. A purple and pink highlight will then come up to show the area you’ve selected.

Once you’re over the area you want to pick, which in this case will be the edge, simply release your mouse button and that means you’ve chosen to blur the area.

Now simply repeat the process to cover all the edges if you need to!

Final Thoughts 

Being able to blur images, particularly the edges of them, is a very useful and important tool when creating a unique and artistic design that will draw attention to the central element of your image.

This way, you can cleverly attempt to control what it is you want people to take away from looking at your image.  

In Canva, you can do this easily and for free, making it the perfect platform for creating your own professional or recreational designs for things such as posters, presentations, book covers, Instagram posts, business cards and so much more.

So if you’re looking to design any of these items and easily edit your own images in an artistic and impressive way without putting much effort into the task, you should definitely look into signing up for the graphic design platform right away!