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#+title: S02|L04 - canva ai optimization tools
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- [[https://jellyfin.ronnyabraham.com/web/index.html#/details?id=659c99d60d3aa3470428018b68edb58d&serverId=99488804638e465693eed17924c57b60][video]]

* Review

** Summary
This lesson shows how to take AI-generated artwork and prepare it for print-on-demand using Canva’s AI tools.

** Core Idea
AI images are not automatically print-ready.

They usually need:
- background removal
- upscaling
- cleanup
- transparent PNG export
- Printify testing

** Main Workflow
1. Create Canva project near product print-area size
2. Upload AI image
3. Set background color to likely shirt/product color
4. Remove background
5. Upscale image
6. Clean unwanted artifacts
7. Add optional text/elements
8. Export as transparent PNG
9. Upload to Printify and verify

** Key Canva Tools
- Background remover
- Image upscaler
- Pixel eraser
- Magic eraser
- Elements
- PNG export
- Transparent background
- Size slider

** Important Warning
Do not upload raw AI art directly to Printify.

Problems can include:
- white background box
- low resolution
- washed-out print
- pixelation
- messy edges

** AI Image Prep Checklist [0/5]
- [ ] Line art is clear
- [ ] Background is simple
- [ ] Main subject is readable
- [ ] Colors are strong enough
- [ ] Design fits intended shirt/product color

** Canva Optimization Checklist [0/7]
- [ ] Upload AI image
- [ ] Set canvas background to target product color
- [ ] Remove background
- [ ] Upscale image
- [ ] Clean unwanted artifacts
- [ ] Add text/elements if needed
- [ ] Review final design

** Export Checklist [0/5]
- [ ] PNG selected
- [ ] Size increased as much as practical
- [ ] Transparent background enabled
- [ ] File downloaded
- [ ] File tested in Printify

** Bottom Line
AI art generation is only step one.

The sellable product file must be:
- clean
- transparent
- high-resolution
- tested on the actual product


* Transcript
#+begin_example
00:00
Welcome back to another tutorial video. In this video, I'm

00:03
going to show you how I use Canva to take

00:06
AI images that I generate

00:08
and then turn them into print ready files and optimize

00:12
them for print on demand products.

00:15
And this is actually a very important thing to do

00:18
because let me show you something. So this here is

00:21
a,

00:23
a popular t shirt, which

00:25
I suspect I don't know, but I suspect it probably

00:28
had some help with AI images to create it.

00:32
Well, if you don't optimize your images to be print

00:36
ready, then you can encounter some problems. So take a

00:39
look at this here.

00:41
When it's actually printed onto a shirt, you can see

00:44
that the design looks washed out

00:47
and it doesn't look anywhere near as vibrant. And the

00:50
most likely answer for why that is

00:54
is probably because it was not optimized for print,

00:58
and it's probably in low resolution.

01:01
And so because of that, when it's actually printed,

01:05
it doesn't look very good. It also could be a

01:07
combination with the printer itself that was used to make

01:11
the shirt.

01:12
But quite likely,

01:13
my guess is that the image was not well optimized.

01:17
So it's important to do that so that you don't

01:19
get it looking like this.

01:21
And it's pretty easy to do. So let's go ahead

01:23
and let's create a new Canva project.

01:26
So there's multiple ways, of course, that you can approach

01:28
this. The most common way is to simply just create

01:31
a,

01:33
a design,

01:34
that is the

01:36
same or similar size to the print area. So I'm

01:38
just gonna do that here.

01:44
That way you can make sure that,

01:47
you've got your placement as you want.

01:49
So I created this design here

01:53
with,

01:54
nano banana.

01:56
And,

01:57
because I've been,

01:58
I've been doing a series of tutorial videos recently, of

02:00
course, on the 6 7 meme. If you don't know

02:02
again what this is, it's just simply 6 7

02:05
is a popular meme with gen alpha and generation z,

02:10
and so it's selling well onto t shirts right now.

02:14
And,

02:15
different cross niche designs where you take it and you

02:18
apply it to different types of,

02:21
niches like how this 1 here applied it to Christmas.

02:24
Well,

02:26
my 1, of course, supplies it to,

02:29
to princesses, and it's using donuts which are popular with,

02:33
with, a younger female crowd as well right now. So

02:36
yeah.

02:37
That's what this is. This is based on that. So

02:39
I created this design here, and here's how I would

02:43
optimize it for print.

02:44
So

02:45
first of all,

02:47
if we actually come and we're gonna change the background

02:49
color of this,

02:52
to black because this would be most likely printed. I'd

02:55
I'd be optimizing this for a black t shirt print.

02:57
Well, as you can see, currently right now,

02:59
it has this white box around it.

03:02
We need to remove this white this white background box.

03:06
And right now,

03:08
AI image generators,

03:10
can't create pictures on a transparent background. That might change

03:13
in the future, but until that changes,

03:15
you need to remove the background.

03:17
If you don't remove the background, here's what's gonna happen.

03:19
It's going to look like this. So I just uploaded

03:21
the straight as is onto

03:23
a Bella Canvas 2001 t shirt here on Printify. And,

03:26
yep,

03:28
it will look like this.

03:29
You don't want that, obviously,

03:31
so we need to remove the background.

03:35
So,

03:37
we I'm gonna come here and change the spec to

03:40
be

03:42
white.

03:44
Is she I'll keep it as black for now. She

03:46
will we'll we'll pick gray. Oh, sorry.

03:49
We'll pick gray for this so that we can see

03:51
how it looks. So,

03:53
it's pretty simple. You just come. You can either click

03:55
this button here if it's available, or if you can't

03:57
see it, come to

03:59
edit and then click,

04:01
background remover in the Matrix Studio.

04:08
And now you can see it has

04:10
removed the background, so which is why you can now

04:12
see,

04:13
the background gray color.

04:15
And the background remover tool works really well,

04:19
particularly around,

04:21
lines which are clear and defined. So initially

04:24
so when I made this with Nano Banana,

04:26
the lines were quite thin, poorly defined. So I got

04:29
it to redraw it with

04:31
clear,

04:35
basic

04:38
line art. And so because of that, you can see

04:40
it's done an excellent job at removing the background and

04:42
keeping it looking really nice. So if you're having trouble

04:45
with the background remover, getting it to remove all of

04:47
the background, go back to your AI image generator,

04:50
such as Nanobanana

04:51
and ask it to simplify the line art and to

04:54
make it bold and clear like this, and you should

04:57
get a very good result.

04:59
Now there is just 1 problem, though, currently.

05:03
It's, like you know, we've we've removed the background, which

05:05
is great, but the image itself is in, somewhat low

05:09
resolution.

05:10
And so right now, this would not be suitable to

05:13
print. If we tried to print it, it would come

05:14
out looking washed out and pixelated.

05:17
So we can fix it by coming to edit.

05:21
And then coming down to the apps

05:23
and then coming

05:25
and finding the image upscaler tool here. Gonna click this.

05:30
And generally speaking, it takes a bit longer, but upscaling

05:33
to the highest resolution that you can,

05:36
is a good idea. So we're gonna come and click

05:38
upscale. And as I said, this is gonna take a

05:41
little while, but it's definitely worth it. Not only is

05:45
it gonna upscale the image into a higher resolution so

05:48
that when it prints, it'll print

05:50
nice and crisp and clear.

05:52
But it's also

05:54
going

05:55
to,

05:56
just improves details a little bit because some of these

05:58
details are a little bit fuzzy.

06:00
So it's going to improve the detailing and it's going

06:03
to

06:04
just make the design look nicer overall in addition to

06:07
upscaling it into higher resolution.

06:09
So it's gonna do multiple things for us,

06:14
which is really, really handy.

06:18
But as I said, it can definitely

06:20
take it takes a few moments, so

06:24
we just we just need to be a little bit

06:26
patient.

06:29
These are the parts when I'm creating a tutorial for

06:31
a whole I often skip over.

06:34
But for this tutorial, I wanted to include it so

06:36
you could see how long it actually takes so that

06:38
you could,

06:39
figure out how long a design will realistically take you

06:41
to create once you start stacking tools on top of

06:44
each other. So I just finished it for us, so

06:46
we're gonna come and click replace.

06:50
And now it's switching out our lower resolution design

06:54
with our new maximum,

06:57
resolution design, which also takes a few moments.

07:06
Loading. Loading.

07:17
There you go. It has successfully changed it. And so

07:19
I don't know if you're gonna be able to tell.

07:21
Hopefully, you should be able to tell,

07:23
but these colors are much nicer now that it has

07:26
been switched out with the higher resolution design.

07:29
So it's

07:30
looking really, really nice.

07:33
Now

07:34
there is,

07:36
something else I want to show you. So let's say

07:38
that you have this design, but there are parts of

07:40
it that you don't like.

07:42
Well, we can fix that.

07:44
And here's how we're gonna do it. So,

07:47
click the image and then come, and you got 2

07:50
different types of erasers. So you have the pixel eraser,

07:53
which literally lets you just rub out any part of

07:56
the image that you don't like. Of course, I don't

07:59
want to do that for this 1, so I'm going

08:01
to redo that. So that's 1 way that you can

08:04
get rid of anything that you don't like. Another way

08:06
is you can use the magic eraser tool.

08:09
And let me show you why this is so powerful.

08:12
So let's say

08:13
I like my

08:14
6 stone up here,

08:16
but I don't like some of these colors.

08:19
So I can come in and I can get rid

08:21
of them.

08:22
And I can get rid of them by simply

08:25
brushing over them.

08:28
Brush over this 1.

08:30
Get rid of this 1. Let's get rid of this

08:32
1.

08:33
Let's get rid of this here. Get rid of this

08:36
here.

08:37
This here.

08:42
This here.

08:45
So pick any parts of it that you don't like,

08:47
that you wanna get rid of, and then just come

08:49
and click erase. Now what Canva's AI is gonna do

08:53
is it's going to fill in the gaps. So you

08:55
can see that it covered over it. It figured out,

08:59
what color should be there in its place if you

09:01
were to get rid of it, and it filled it

09:02
in for me. So just got rid of them. So

09:05
you can go ahead and clean up any images that

09:07
you like. And, of course, you can also go ahead

09:09
and you can add anything to that you want to

09:11
it. For example, you might decide that you actually just

09:13
want some cool sparkles. So, yeah, you can come here

09:17
and search for some sparkles

09:20
and you could add them into your design.

09:23
Like, you know, it could be fun to pop some

09:25
sparkles

09:27
over here by the

09:32
by the wand. Because if we came in, if

09:34
we

09:35
turned the e. See, now you got these cute little

09:38
sparkles nearby it. So, yeah, you could go ahead and

09:41
you could add any,

09:43
fun elements like images to it, or you could go

09:46
ahead and add any text to it that you want,

09:48
whatever you need to your design.

09:52
Either way,

09:53
once you have it looking the way that you want,

09:56
we can save it.

09:59
And saving it is very easy.

10:01
So now come here. I'm just gonna give it a

10:03
name, like, 6, 7,

10:07
kids,

10:09
donut,

10:10
princess,

10:11
t shirts.

10:14
And then we're gonna come and click share.

10:17
Then we're gonna come and click download.

10:19
And you wanna make sure that you've got PNG selected.

10:22
And then we're gonna come and we're going to increase

10:25
this

10:25
so you could increase it by, about, times 3 is

10:29
nice. If this image is a little bit too big

10:32
when you try to upload it into Printify, you can

10:35
always decrease it. But try to get it as high

10:37
as you can

10:39
and then come and click the transparent background.

10:42
That way, we won't have this problem here where it

10:46
it prints with the color because we don't want this.

10:48
We don't want the colored background.

10:50
We want it to print with a transparent background.

10:53
And then you just come and click download,

10:57
and now you have an image that is suitable for

11:00
printing.

11:02
Alright. So what I did was I downloaded it from

11:05
Canva, and then I've come ahead and I have reuploaded

11:08
that file that we created into Printify to show you

11:10
here. And so here it is. You can see that

11:13
it is in high resolution, which is fantastic, and you

11:16
can see the background has been removed there. So even

11:19
if we change the color of the t shirt, there

11:21
is no colored background because we made it transparent.

11:24
And so now

11:26
this is what it looks like when it is printed

11:29
onto the shirt,

11:31
which looks great.

11:33
So

11:34
I will, of course, include

11:36
my affiliate link to Canva in the description of this

11:39
video. Using it is entirely optional, but if you do

11:43
choose to use it, I very much appreciate it. So

11:45
thank you.
#+end_example