The Great Debate: Canva vs. PicMonkey

It’s the debate of the century!

Or… something around those lines! A lot of people want to know the differences between the ever-so-popular design programs Canva and PicMonkey. Which is better? Which is easier to use? Which is faster? Which is more convenient? I’ll answer all these questions and a whole lot more in this post. Grab a cup of tea, sit back, and enjoy!

An overview of “the easiest to use design program in the world”.

Homepage | When you type in canva.com and enter, you come upon Canva’s Homepage. It shows your designs, which are at any time available and editable, for free. If you accidentally close a page, it automatically saves it and you can come back to it and continue working on a design.

Templates + Custom Sizing | Canva allows you to choose from a vast majority of free templates. They also allow you to create a custom sized canvas … letting you choose your measurements in pixels, inches, or millimeters.  However, you cannot resize your design once you create it. To do that, you’d to create a whole new template.

Fonts | Canva has close to 100 different fonts you can choose. You can resize the font, choose a color for the font, space it, align it, duplicate it, and arrange it using the tool bar at the top of the editing screen.

Elements | Canva has nine different element categories.

Photos – A small selection of free photos for your use. A large selection of stock photos that cost around $1 each.

Grids – Photo grids, ranging from one to many different layouts.

Frames – Photo frames of different shapes and sizes. Circles, squares, rectangles, letters, and more.

Shapes – A large range of shapes that you can color, resize, and adjust transparency to.

Lines – Multiple different lines… dotted, squiggly, straight, curvy, and so many more.

Illustrations – Clip-art design elements such as food, sports, and everyday objects.

Icons – More clip-art design elements containing the same as above and more.

Charts – Editable charts. Adjustable color, x and y axis’, and more.

I ♥ Canva – A section with Canva logos, hearts, and more.

Layouts | Canva has pre-made layouts for you. For example, if you chose a “YouTube thumbnail” template, they would have ideas for thumbnails – containing shapes, elements, and images.

Background | Choose any color you want for a background, colored images with patterns, or pay $1 for an image.

Uploads | There are three categories in the uploads section.

Uploads – Your own images you have uploaded. there is a button “Upload your own images” where you can upload any image of your choice from your files.

Purchase – Images you have purchased would go in this section.

Facebook – Connect your Facebook account to have all your images transfer from your account to Canva.

Download | You can download your image as a PDF-Print, PDF-Standard, PNG, or JPG.

Sharing | You can share through a link,  by inviting people to edit, through social media (Twitter + Facebook), or embedding your design (you need to make the design public first). There is also a link to an interactive website which displays your designs, although I find some of the designs get re-sized or distorted when I use the interactive website.

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PROS

I love how simple Canva is to use. I also like how you can add multiple pages to one design and duplicate a page, which makes everything so easy!

CONS

Having no option of uploading your own fonts trips up the design aspect.

An overview of the “everything you need to make your ideas come to life” editing software.

Homepage | The PicMonkey homepage is basically its promotional website, with a tool bar at the top, featuring four options.

Edit – Upload an image from your computer, hub (premium only),  or Facebook. Look at sample images.

Touch Up – Choose an image to touch up by uploading from your computer, hub (premium only), or Facebook. Or look at sample images.

Design – Choose from templates, a blank canvas, or choose your own size. PicMonkey only lets you enter a size into pixels, so make sure you convert if you’re sizing in inches or millimeters.

Collage – Create a collage by uploading images from your computer, hub (premium only), or Facebook. Also look at sample collages.

Toolbar | PicMonkeys’ toolbar contains an “Open New” option (images, for example). You can also save to hub (premium only), share, or export the image.

Basic Edits | The basic edits you can do are crop the image, color the canvas, rotate the image, adjust the exposure, choose colors, sharpen the image, or resize it.

Effects | Choose from a large variety of image filters.

Touch Up | For images with faces, use these edits to touch up the faces, such as blemish removers, teeth whitener, and more. A majority of these need you to have the premium account to use.

Text | Options for using PicMonkey’s fonts, or using your own. To upload your own fonts, you have to first download and install fonts to your computer (before even opening the PicMonkey editor). To learn how to do this, click here. You can resize the fonts, their color, adjust transparency, rotate, and more.

Overlays | PicMonkey has a wide range of overlays, from basic shapes to flowers and balloons. A part of the selection of overlays cost money. However, as many people do, I recommend finding free overlays and graphic elements that you can upload. You can find a of list where to find these here.

Frames | A collection of frames for your photos.

Textures | Want your photo to look as if it had a burst of light? Use a texture. You can design your own texture using the “Your Own” tab.

Themes | Themes compile the elements and overlays specifically. If you want a “school” theme, click the tab. It’ll have all the school themed elements and more!

Exporting | Name your file, choose your image quality, and export or download the image.

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PROS

I love how you can upload your own fonts! This is such a great feature. PicMonkey has an overall more professional, personalized way to design, and that’s why I love it.

CONS

The lag! It gets really annoying when you’re trying to design something with precise measurements and layouts. Also, some internet browsers don’t allow for you to upload overlays because of flash.

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I use Canva and PicMonkey interchangeably. Canva is a whole lot easier if you have a lot of overlays to deal with and is way faster. PicMonkey is better for producing professional images, though it may be slower. What are you thoughts?

Which do you prefer, Canva or PicMonkey?

Do you have any favorite aspects about either?

Which do you use, or if both, which do you use more often?

I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I did! If you did, please share it.

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“That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.” 1 Thessalonians 2:12