Canvas (beta) is a shared board for laying out a project: references next to results, a sequence of shots, a selection to review with the team. Each project has one board, and everyone on the project sees each change as soon as it is saved.
Open a board
Choose a project in the header to open its board. With All Projects selected, the workspace owner opens a board for the whole workspace; other members choose a project first.
The workspace owner and the project’s Creators can edit the board. Viewers see it read-only: the tool bar keeps Select and Pan, and the status at the top right reads View only.
Add images and videos
- Press G or click Gallery, then drag images, videos or stacks onto the board. Several assets dropped at once land in a group named Stack, laid out for you. Drop them on a group to add them to it.
- References opens your references in the same panel.
- In the lightbox, Add places the asset in the middle of the view.
- Drop image or video files from your computer onto the board, up to 1 GB each. They are saved to your references. Several files land in a group.
Audio and text assets cannot be placed on a board.
Tools
The tools sit at the top left, in this order:
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Select | Select, move and resize items. Shift+click adds to the selection, and dragging on an empty part of the board selects everything the box touches. |
| Pan | Move around the board. You can also hold Space, or drag with Alt. |
| Pen | Draw freehand. With a stylus, the line follows your pressure. |
| Text | Click to add text. |
| Arrow | Draw an arrow from one point to another. |
| Line | Draw a line. |
| Shape | Draw a rectangle or an ellipse. |
| Sticky note | Click to add a note. |
After you place a text, arrow, line, shape or note, the tool goes back to Select. Pen stays on until you pick another tool or press Esc.
While a drawing tool is on, or drawings are selected, a bar at the bottom of the board sets their style:
- Color: seven colors.
- Shape: Rectangle or Ellipse, for shapes.
- Size: S, M, L or XL. On notes and text, it sets the font size.
- Fill: None or Tint, for shapes.
- Dash: Draw, Solid, Dashed or Dotted, for everything but notes and text.
- Opacity: from 10% to 100%.
Notes and text
Double-click a note or a text to write in it. Both accept Markdown: headings, bold and italic, lists and checklists, quotes, code, tables and links. Ctrl/Cmd+Enter or a click outside saves, and Esc cancels. A note or text holds up to 2,000 characters, and grows to fit what you write.
Groups
A group gathers items in a named, colored frame.
- Select two or more items and choose Arrange > Group (Ctrl/Cmd+G). Ungroup (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+G) removes the frame and keeps its items on the board.
- Double-click a group’s title to rename it. When the group is selected, the swatch beside its title sets its color.
- An item belongs to the group its center sits in: drag it out to take it out, or draw inside a group to add to it. The frame grows to fit what you add.
- Right-click an item and choose Select Group to select its group.
- A group cannot hold another group.
Arrange and view
- Snap aligns items to a grid as you move them.
- Arrange acts on the selection:
- Auto Layout Selection arranges the selected images and videos in balanced columns. Inside a group it reads Auto Layout Group, and fits the frame to them. Drawings stay where they are.
- Group, Ungroup, Duplicate, Undo, Redo and Remove.
- View has Zoom In, Zoom Out and Fit View. The controls at the bottom right do the same: click the percentage to fit the board in the view.
- Right-click an empty part of the board for the same Arrange and View menus.
Remove takes items off the board. The assets stay in your gallery.
Images and videos on the board
- Hover a card to set its status (Good, Maybe, Rejected or Archive) or to add it to your favorites. A colored strip along the bottom of the card shows its status. The gallery shows the same status and favorite, and changes made in the gallery show on the board. Setting a status needs Creator access to the asset’s project.
- Video cards show a still. Move the pointer across one to scrub through it, and double-click it, or right-click and choose Open In Lightbox, to play it.
- Right-click a card for the asset’s menu: Open in Nodes, send it to Image Edit, Video Gen, Video Edit or Upscale, Quick Edit, Download and more. With 2 to 20 assets selected, Create collage saves a collage of them to the gallery.
Working together
Everyone on the project works on the same board. Each change is saved when you release it, and appears on everyone’s board at once. The status at the top right reads Saving…, then Saved. If the connection drops, editing pauses until it comes back.
If someone else changed the same items at the same moment, your change is not saved and Canvas asks you to try again. Undo and Redo step through your own last 100 changes.
Limits
- A board holds up to 1,000 items, groups included.
- There is no copy and paste on the board. Use Duplicate instead.
- A board cannot be exported as an image. To get the assets on it, download them from their menu.
Keyboard shortcuts
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| G | Show or hide the gallery |
| F | Fit the whole board in the view |
| Hold Space | Pan |
| Ctrl/Cmd+Z | Undo |
| Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Z | Redo |
| Ctrl/Cmd+D | Duplicate the selection |
| Ctrl/Cmd+G | Group the selection |
| Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+G | Ungroup |
| Delete or Backspace | Remove the selection from the board |
| Esc | Close the gallery, or go back to Select |
While the gallery is open, only G and Esc work on the board.
See Keyboard shortcuts for the other apps.