Canva vs Photoshop: Which Tool Is Better For You?

What Type of Tool is Canva?

Canva is a graphic design tool that both professional designers and amateurs use. 

The drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to create designs from scratch or edit existing templates. 

Canva offers various features, including uploading your images, creating custom shapes, and adding text with various fonts. 

With over 1 million templates and tools available, Canva is a versatile design platform helping you with personal and professional projects.

What Type of Tool is Photoshop?

Photoshop is a software application that can edit and compose images in layers, masking, and multiple colorspaces, as well as create basic graphics and logos. 

It has extensive support for text, vector, and bitmap images and can create complex graphics such as those containing gradients, 3D shapes, and filters. Photoshop supports all major graphic file formats and has a customizable interface. 

It also supports raw image formats which allow users to edit images without losing any data.

Now that the basics are out of the way let’s pay closer attention to these tools' distinctive features.

1. Canva vs. Photoshop: Templates and Features

Both tools have templates, but the number and the level of customization differ.

Canva - Templates

Canva is pretty much a synonym for pre-made templates. 

It is something Canva is known for. 

Apart from the vast number of templates, there are also stock images, vector graphics, animations, etc. 

Canva is a tool that boosts marketing efforts. 

Therefore, Canva’s Template Gallery offers visuals for social posts, blogs, brochures, flyers, presentations, etc. 

You can use a topic filter to narrow your search and make it more specific. You can easily customize them, but we’ll tackle this a bit later.

Photoshop - Templates

Photoshop offers some templates in its Library, but not as many as Canva. The reason is fairly simple. 

Photoshop is primarily used by professional or experienced designers who generally start from scratch. 

It doesn’t mean they don’t use templates, but even if they do, they tend to do more advanced editing. 

Canva Features

You can see that Canva primarily focuses on marketing campaigns when you take a look at some of its main features:

• Photo editing tools - Like BG remover or Magic Resize that automatically resizes your images to the desired format

• Brand Kit - It helps your team be aligned with brand identity across the platforms and devices

• Publishing Tool - It allows you to schedule and publish your marketing material directly from Canva

• Video designs - A relatively new feature that helps you take your visuals to a new level

• And more.

Photoshop Features

And what about Photoshop?

Just taking a glance at Photoshop’s features will make it apparent you’re dealing with a robust photo editing tool. 

Thus, the main features revolve around photo edits. Let’s just name a few:

• Masking - It helps you hide parts of an image without deleting them.

• Blending -  It changes opacity and fill, so all the layers can blend in nicely

• Image repair & correction - It provides advanced photo editing tools to tweak your images

• Removal Tool - It removes elements from an image 

• Process Raw Files - You can edit and process uncompressed grayscale image data 

• And much more.

Comparing Canva and Photoshop regarding photo editing features seems a bit unfair. Since Photoshop is a photo editing tool, it is only natural that it will have more advanced photo editing options. 

That doesn’t mean you can’t do photo edits with Canva, but it is quite basic like cropping, flipping, and effects.

2. Canva vs. Photoshop: Learning Curve

Apart from photo editing tools, one of the most striking differences between Canva and Photoshop is the ease of use.

Canva - learning curve

For those just starting out, Canva may be the better option. It is simpler to use and has a more straightforward interface. 

Therefore, it is more intuitive and user-friendly.

Photoshop - learning curve

In contrast, Photoshop may be better suited for those with some prior experience with design or photo editing software, as it offers more advanced features. 

For beginners, Photoshop’s dashboard might be overwhelming and too complex and confusing. 

Thus, Photoshop has a much steeper learning curve.

3. Canva vs. Photoshop: Plugins and Integrations

Regarding plugins and integrations, both tools boast hundreds of integrations and extensions.

Canva - plugins and integrations

Canva has more than 90 plugins and integrations. As expected, they are about social media platforms, file hosting services, email marketing tools, etc. 

Some of the names on the list are Mailchimp, Pixabay, Pexels Dropbox, etc. 

Being a more user-friendly platform, accessing integrations on Canva is easy, and you can do it within the platform.

Photoshop - plugins and integrations

Photoshop has thousands of apps, third-party integrations, and plugins. Its vast number implies that they cover a wide range of things, from photo editing and graphic designing to file hosting and editing plugins. The list goes on and on, but some of the names are Slack, Microsoft Teams, Pixelsquid, etc. Although Photoshop has many more integrations than Canva, accessing them is more complex because you need to install the Creative Cloud Application. We should also mention that not all of Photoshop’s extensions and plugins are free.

4. Canva vs. Photoshop: Collaboration

It goes without saying that both platforms provide excellent collaboration options. But are there any differences between the two?

Canva - collaboration

Canva allows real-time collaboration, which is extremely practical and handy. You can send invites via mail or link, you can even share folders. You and your team members can add comments, tag one another, leave feedback, etc. Moreover, it is possible to create up to 20 teams per project, where each team can have 3000 members. We should mention that these more advanced options are only available in the paid plan.

Photoshop - collaboration

When it comes to Photoshop, you can also invite and add people and leave comments and feedback, but you can’t work on your design in real-time. Only one user can work on the design at a time. On the bright side, you can add collaborators that don’t have a Photoshop subscription, which is really cool. 

It’s hard to have the winner in this category, let’s call it a tie.

It’s about time we presented you with a graphic design tool that closes the gap between Canva and Adobe, but not before we go through the pros and cons of the two tools and compare their pricing.

5. Canva vs. Photoshop: Pros and Cons

Photoshop and Canva have a lot to offer users, and which is better ultimately comes down to personal or business preference. Those willing to put in the time to master both will find that each has unique advantages and disadvantages. 

Let’s check them.

Canva’s Pros

✅User-friendly app, great for beginners

✅A vast range of pre-made templates

✅Great for marketing campaigns and materials

Canva’s Cons

⛔It lacks more advanced photo editing features

⛔A limited number of free features, in general,

⛔You can’t create more unique and highly customized designs

Photoshop’s Pros

✅ Robust photo editing tools

✅Thousands of integrations and plugins

✅ You can create highly customized and unique designs

Photoshop’s Cons

⛔Has a steep learning curve

⛔You can’t collaborate in real-time

⛔ You need to install a separate app to access plugins

And last but not least, let’s check their pricing.

6. Canva vs. Photoshop: Pricing

Canva - pricing

Canva offers three plans: one free and two paid plans.

Photoshop - pricing

Photoshop has three plans. None is free, but they all have a 7-day free trial.

Whether you choose Canva or Photoshop, both models are subscription-based.

And now, without any further ado, let’s present a graphic design tool that can be your top pick if you want the best from Canva and Adobe’s worlds. Enters Glorify.

Glorify - Bridging the Gap between Canva and Photoshop

Glorify is a graphic design tool that is especially useful if you are into eCommerce and need to create engaging and converting visuals. One of Glorify’s distinctive features is that it provides advanced mockup and photo editing tools for non-designers and beginners. 

The words of Glorify’s CEO, Omar Farook, summarize best what Glorify is about: “Adobe is an overkill workflow, and Canva is way too basic. We are finally bridging this gap.”

So what are some of Glorify’s features and tools:

• Infinite Canvas-to brainstorm and collaborate with your team members, prepare marketing materials, and work on brand identity

• Mockups- to bring life to your designs by showing them in 3D

• Brand It Kit -to make sure your brand identity is visible across all the channels

• Photo editing tools like BG remover, effects, textures, shapes and lines, automatic resizing, etc.

• Annotation tool- to highlight the product’s main or most important features

• Template Bundles - to get automatically resized templates for all the platforms and social media channels Sharing and Exporting your files

Share and Export - you can collaborate and share your work within the platform.

Naturally, it’s not all roses with Glorify. The major disadvantage compared to similar graphic design tools would be the lesser number of templates. But their Template Gallery keeps being regularly updated. Another setback is the lack of video tools. However, it is a matter of days before a beta version with video features becomes available.

Taking everything into account, there is much more than meets the eye when we speak about Glorify, and there is only one way to find out. 

So start your free trial and start reaping the benefits from amazing visuals for all of your business needs.

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