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One of my favorite Canva features is grids and frames. Frames let you add an image or video and it will take the shape of your frame. In Canva there is a wide selection of frames to choose from, but you may find that you want a specific shape that is not already available in their library of frames.
In this tutorial I am going to show you how to create a custom from for Canva with Photoshop. If you prefer to use Illustrator check out my tutorial on how to create a custom Canva frame with Illustrator.
How to Create a Custom Canva frame with Photoshop
Create a frame in Photoshop
First open up a document in Adobe Photoshop. When you go to create your document make sure that you have Artboards selected. For this tutorial we need to save our document as a PDF for it to work in Canva. In order to export a document as a PDF in Photoshop it needs to an artboard.
In the video I demonstrate using the custom shape tool. Photoshop has a wide variety of shapes that come with the program that you can use in your designs. In this example I use the paw print shape.
Note: Don’t see the default Photoshop legacy shapes? No problem. Go to window and open up the shapes panel. In the right upper corner of the shapes panel click to open the menu and select Legacy Shapes and More. This will load the default shapes into Photoshop.
Once you have your shape you need to add a photo to your document. You can click and drag the photo directly into Photoshop or go to File > Place embedded to load your photo.
In the layers panel make sure the photo is on top of your shape layer. Right click on the photo layer and select create clipping mask.
Export your file as a PDF
The next step is to export your file as a PDF. Go to File > Export > Artboards to PDF. This is why you needed to originally create your document with Artboard selected. If you didn’t then this option would be greyed out.
When the export option dialogue box appears you can select the file destination and give your file a name. Click to export your PDF.
Open the PDF file in Canva
In order to use your custom frame in Canva you need to upload it to Canva directly. Typically when you add media to Canva you can do it within a Canva document. In this case you need to upload your PDF file directly to Canva. Go to Projects and click on the plus icon in the upper right corner and select upload.
Once your document has been uploaded open it up in Canva. You should see your shape with the image inside. Click on your custom frame and click the trash icon. It will give you the option to delete image or delete frame. Go ahead and delete the image and you will see the standard image that represents a Canva frame. Now you can start using your custom frame by adding an image or video to your frame.
To use this custom frame in a new design just copy (Cmd/Ctrl + C) and paste it into a new design (Cmd/Ctrl + V).
Saving your Custom Frame
I recommend creating a dedicated folder in Canva for your custom frames. Click on File > Save to Folder and save this file to your custom folder. You could also create a master Canva document where you copy and paste all of your custom frames and can create a bookmark for easy access. This way you have all of your custom frames in one place.