Want to know how to make a background transparent in Canva?
There are actually a few methods that fall under this topic.
The first is how to make the background image transparent on a design.
The second is how to download a design with a transparent background. When you’re looking for how to make a logo transparent in Canva, this is probably the one you want.
The third is how to remove background, in case you want to change or eliminate the background behind the subject of a photo.
I’m going to cover all 3 and show you what each one does. So you’ll know exactly which process to follow, depending on the result you want!
Ready to open Canva and get started?
Disclosure: I’m a Canva affiliate. If you purchase a plan after clicking a link in this article, I may make a commission, at no cost to you.
How to make a background image transparent in Canva
The first thing we’ll learn to do is to make a background image transparent. This can be really useful if you have a strong image that is a bit overwhelming as a background color.
Or you have an element that you want to make more of a subtle background feature than an eye-catching part of the design.
It even works as a quick way to make a solid color into a lighter version of itself – just by altering the transparency level.
The process works on almost anything in Canva if you see the transparency slider. It’s the only one that works in free Canva.
Open a design and choose the photo or element you want to work with.
Here’s a photo with some paper flowers in different vibrant shades.
The layout of the image makes it ideal for a text overlay, but the flowers are a bit too bright for the aesthetic I want.
If you select the photo and go to the transparency setting, you can change this.
If you move the slider down to 50%, you can see that the image becomes much more transparent and the colors are a lot more muted.
You can keep going down, but once you get to zero, the image will effectively vanish. I stopped here at 25% to give you an idea.
Then you can add text, elements, or even other photos as you want, to finish your design.
How to make a logo transparent in Canva
The other transparent background feature in Canva is for downloading images you can overlay on any background. This is super useful for logos and other graphics that you want to lay over a photo, solid color, or even your website.
This feature is only available on paid plans, though. Try Canva Pro free for 30 days and see how useful it is!
Let’s say you have a business logo that you want to add to your website.
As you can see here, there’s a white background on the image as it is made in Canva.
But you might not want the logo to appear in a white box. Maybe you have a colored header on your website.
The way to deal with this is in the download settings.
If you click the ‘download’ option, you will see some optional checkboxes.
Check the one next to ‘transparent background’ and this will download the image without the white background showing.
You can choose the file format, but the best image file type to save with a transparent background is PNG.
When you have a design in PNG format, it retains a higher level of detail. You don’t want pixelated designs on your website, or in your printed materials.
When you upload the image to your website, all you will see are the pink areas and the white words. No white background.
How to remove background in Canva
The other feature in Canva related to backgrounds is called the background remover.
This allows you to take a photo and remove the background – then you can leave it white, or replace it with another background.
Or, you can download it with the transparent background process shown above.
The one-click background remover is only available on paid plans. Try Canva Pro free for 30 days and see how easy it is!
To remove the background, open an image in Canva and select the photo required.
Select the ‘edit image’ option from the left side of the top menu.
Then select the ‘background remover’ from the menu.
Canva will remove as much of the background as it thinks is needed with a single click. Voila!
There are also options to erase or restore parts of the image that appear in the menu once the background has gone. This allows you to fine tune the image like a graphic designer would do in Photoshop.
Honestly, I was so impressed with the one-second version that I didn’t see any need to tweak. And seriously, I’ve been known to spend half an hour on removing a background in Photoshop.
Once you have the image as you want it in the design, you can download it as a normal or transparent background image, depending on your future uses for it.
Or you could add a background photo or image to have a little fun!
Here’s how this works in a video example of using it for a cool Instagram profile picture.
Transparent backgrounds for all projects
With these techniques, you can easily make backgrounds transparent for any project.
You can reduce the brightness of images or elements.
Or easily download a logo or other branding element to use on your website or print material.
You can also use remove backgrounds to create unique images by layering photos together.
How will you use these Canva features to make a background transparent?
Disclosure: If you purchase a plan, I may earn a commission, at no cost to you.
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