Photoshop vs. Canva | Which one should I use for my interior design business?

Hello, y’all! I hope you have had a fabulous week! Today on the blog we are going to go over the key differences between Photoshop vs. Canva. More specifically which one should you use as an interior designer and why? For my business, I use both, which is why I created this fun little blog to explain to you the differences and how you can utilize them in your business. If you have any questions please feel free to drop them in the comments. For training check out more course which is out now!

Adobe Photoshop and Canva are both fantastic graphic editing software. Photoshop is standard when it comes to creating high-quality graphics and has been for years. While Canva is still new and more available to a small business market with its low price as FREE*. If you are in need of process documents, social media graphics, and even invoices that are branded Canva is your gal! Canva has almost no learning curve which makes it easy for those who aren’t tech-savvy to learn. Photoshop however is a little bit more difficult to learn but you have a lot more flexibility in what you can create.

Features

Canva and Photoshop provide advanced features that are tailored to each of their specific idea clients. Canva is a free creative tool that has hundreds of capabilities and increasingly getting smarter each day. If you are in need of process documents, branding, and even invoices that are branded Canva is your gal! Canva has almost no learning curve which makes it easy for those who aren’t tech-savvy to learn. With the free plan, you are limited to some capabilities and graphics but you still have a limitless amount of graphic projects you can create.  Photoshop can do everything Canva can do and more! Photoshop was built as a tool for creatives to be able to achieve results that they otherwise never thought possible. The advanced tools that you have access to in photoshop allow you to create precise changes to your document or photo you are editing. Being able to edit so fluidly is not available in Canva but often is not needed either.

Ease of Use-

When you first get into Photoshop or Canva, the difference is quite stark. Canva is easy to understand with clearly labeled tools and buttons. From the start, you’ll feel pretty confident with the basics of the program and could create your very first design in just a few minutes.

Compare that to Photoshop, and you will be a lot more overwhelmed right out the gate. Photoshop designs need to be created mainly from scratch without the comfort of a template to work from.

Ease Of Use Winner: Canva

Design Tools & Features-

Canva provides many different design tools and features that are only growing with time. This being said Canva does have its limitations where their gifs, and svgs cannot be customized. As opposed to photoshop which offers limitless customization and features. The only thing limiting photoshop is user captivity.

You can also edit the path of your shapes and text inside of Photoshop, meaning you can customize their shapes. For example, if you wanted to make one character look different from the others, editing the path allows you to do that easily. Again, this is something that’s not possible inside of Canva.

Design Tools & Features Winner : Photoshop

Photo-editing Tools-

In Canva, there are a few basic image editing tools. These adjustments are applied globally to the image, and you can’t make any selective adjustments. However, Canva is a great tool to use for quick adjustments.

On the other hand, Photoshop offers every industry-standard editing tool available, plus allows you to edit RAW photos, something Canva cannot. This helps you to keep the most details in your images without sacrificing the quality.

One of the most user-friendly photo editing tools inside Photoshop is called Camera Raw, which has nearly every adjustment one could need to enhance a photo. From basic exposure and color correction to complex spot adjustments with masks, it’s the full package with every tool a photographer needs.

Photo-editing tools Winner : Photoshop

Features for Designers?

As an interior designer, you need a way to clearly communicate your design effectively. It’s important to find the right workflow for your business. Your processes may differ from others and that is okay! The end goal is just to have professional effective presentations that give that WOW factor to our clients. Let’s go thru photoshop and canvas to see how we use them both as interior designers.

Canva

As an interior designer, I create a ton of documents in Canva. My social media post, blog graphics, client process documents. Personally, there is one thing I don’t typically create in Canva. That is 2d concept boards. However, if canva is best for your workflow you can create what I call a “Simple Concept Board” which is an Pinterest pin-size document. This document is reusable and can easily share with your client a shoppable way to order their furniture. I presented how to create these documents to the EDA a few weeks ago if you would like to watch CLICK HERE.

Photoshop

Photoshop is my favorite tool to use for the manipulation of images and any graphics where I need some shadowing or blending tools that Canva simply does not have. Photoshop is a powerful tool that has many capabilities.  I use photoshop to post-edit renderings and photographs, as well as create high-quality concept boards for my edesign clients. Unlike Canva, Photoshop can manipulate the perspective of a photo, which will allow you to create the illusion that the furniture is in perspective. This is a fairly simple technique that I will be going over in my next seminar below.

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