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How to make an INSTAGRAM PUZZLE feed with Canva [2024] - FREE, fun and easy!
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Jan 14, 2024
This video is a tutorial for the year 2024, demonstrating how to create an Instagram puzzle feed using Canva. It likely provides step-by-step instructions, showcasing specific tools and features within Canva to achieve the desired puzzle feed effect. The tutorial aims to empower users with the skills to design a cohesive and visually appealing Instagram feed in a free, fun, and easy manner using Canva.
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0:00
In this tutorial I'll show you the best step how to create an Instagram puzzle in Canva
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how to download it and how to split it. All the steps that I'm going to show you today
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are free so you can follow this tutorial if you have a free or pro Canva account
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And it is also a beginner proof tutorial as I'll show you all the steps you need to follow
0:21
Make sure you watch until the end so you don't miss any of the tips that I'm going to give you
0:25
during the video. First we need to calculate the size of the complete puzzle so we can then
0:34
create a custom size Canva document. We want to create an Instagram post that has a 3x3 grid
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that means that we need to take the size of one single square post which is 1080x1080 and then
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we are going to multiply it by 3. So as you can see here the ideal size for square post is 1080x1080
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we're going to take this number here and we're going to multiply it by 3. Now we're going to
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take this number to create our custom size document in Canva. Go to canva.com and click
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here on this icon that says custom size. Another way to create a custom size document is by clicking
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on this button that says create a design. When you click on this button you will see the option
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to create your custom size document here. So click either on this button or this one. You will then
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enter this number in here so 3240 and then one more time in here 3240. Make sure that you have
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selected pixels and then create new design. We are in the editor and as you can see we have a square
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format document and remember that this is the document where we are going to build the puzzle
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So we need to clearly see where each post ends and which the next one starts. For this we are
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going to create guides so it is easier for us to design this puzzle. To add these guides go to file
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on top of the screen, view settings and then add guides. This is a fairly new feature so if you
2:08
didn't know that this existed this is going to save you a lot of time. Click here and then from
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here we are going to select the custom option. From here we are going to add three columns
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three rows and then the gap is going to be zero. I actually prefer to use the custom option because
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as you can see my guides are here and I don't have any gaps in between my guides. If you were
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to select the three by three grid you will see that there is a gap in between these guides. I
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prefer to be more precise so that's why I use the custom feature so I can only have one guide and I
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can see exactly where I'm going to split this document. Okay we're ready three columns, three
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rows, gap zero zero, margin zero zero, add guides. We already have our guides and we are ready to
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design. I would suggest that you start with a template which is what I'm going to do because
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this is going to save us a lot of time. We don't have to select the elements that we want to use
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and also we already have a predefined aesthetic in there. Remember that templates are here to be used
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and they have been professionally designed. So you're going to the panel on the left and open
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the design tab. This is going to give you access to templates so you can browse through all of
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these templates and see if you like something in particular. In my case I'm going to use a keyword
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to be able to find a collection of templates. My keyword is the following organic flower skincare
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Remember that this is only one word so do not add any spaces in case that you want to work with
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this exact same collection of templates. Now remember that we are creating an Instagram
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puzzle that means that we are designing nine different posts into just one image. Every single
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post is going to be defined by these guides so if you add any of these templates to your page
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make sure that it fits just one square. Now I'm gonna add this one because I want to have this
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quote in the middle of my puzzle so I'm going to click one time and this is going to fill my entire
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design. What I'm going to do is to select all the elements and then I'm going to zoom out so I can
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work with these elements before I didn't have access to these anchors and now by zooming out
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I'm able to grab these anchors to reduce the size of these elements. I'm gonna grab them, make them
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smaller, make them fit in this square that we see here. These flowers that are in the background
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they can be in the other squares because these are going to help us create this puzzle effect
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I just want to make sure that this quote is inside this square and the other elements we can take
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care of them later on when we start building the other designs around. Now to start building the
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other post that we have around I have a little trick for you. Instead of adding another set of
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elements on top of this one because this is going to get really messy, let me show you, let me go
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back to the collection of templates. Let's say that I want to add this other design and I want to
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position it right here in this corner. I'm gonna add it and then you see that my previous design
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is gone. Let me go back, this is the one that we already reduced the size, this is the quote and
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let me go back. If I want to add another design to be able to create another post let's add a new
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page and then insert the new design. Let me click on this one, we have all of the elements in here
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and I'm going to reduce the size of these elements so it fits one of these squares and I'm gonna drag
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them to page number one and position them in one of the squares. To continue building your puzzle
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you will need to do exactly the same steps. You will go to page number two and on the left if you
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want to continue working with the same collection of templates instead of scrolling down in here
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because these are other templates you need to go back to access again this collection of templates
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I'm gonna add another design in here taking all the elements, reducing the size and making sure
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that it fits one of the squares and from here you can either drag your elements to page number one
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or another way is to copy the elements and then paste them on page number one or you can also
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cut them by pressing command x and going to page number one and ctrl v. You will then reposition
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your elements where you want them to go. I'm gonna follow exactly the same steps going to page number
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two, going back to my collection, selecting another template, reducing the size so it fits one of these
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little squares, ctrl x, ctrl v and then reposition. I'm gonna follow exactly the same steps to fill
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these empty spaces and I'll see you in a second. Okay I have filled almost all of these squares
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and I have an empty one because I want to show you something special about this collection and
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also something that I know some of you will have questions about. Let's say that I want to post
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an Instagram carousel within this parcel. There is an Instagram parcel in this collection of templates
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and I also want to mention that all of these templates are free to use. As you can see we don't
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see any crown in here and there is one carousel which is this one. I'm going to page number two
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and when I select this template right here, instead of having the design transferred into
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page number two, I will be able to see all the pages containing this carousel. So I can do
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two things here. I can apply all pages and then have the carousel design in here as well or I can
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simply work on page number two and then later on you can work on this carousel on a different
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document. I have the page number one, this is the Instagram carousel cover and I'm going to position
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this design on this empty square. We have filled all the empty spaces in here and now we need to
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adjust the design so it looks much much better. But before I want to change the name of this
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document because I like to keep everything organized. So as you can see we have an entitled
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design 3240 pixels by 3240 pixels. You can click here and rename your document. So Instagram
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parcel. Now we need to keep working on our design to make it look even more professional. As you can
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see here I have transferred all the elements from all of these templates and some of them are
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overlapping each other which is a good thing but I think we can make it look better. In this case
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we have a blob in here that I think it can go so I'm going to select the element and then either
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delete the trash can or you can delete another element that you don't want to see in the design
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and hit the delete button on your keyboard. From here you can decide to leave the flowers or not
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you can try another layout like for example I'm going to select this flower here, delete it and
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why not try this other blob in here and see how it looks. I'm going to select position and then
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to back and as you can see this blob kind of works in here because these elements here have
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some shapes that are not visible if we don't have anything in the background. So having a blob on
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this design works, looks really nice. So yeah I think I'm gonna leave this blob on this corner
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and then I'm going to continue working with these blobs moving them around and see what works best
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Remember that if you are working with blobs or other kind of shapes on your design always go
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to position and make sure that they are set to back. And also another tip that is going to make
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your puzzle really look like a puzzle is to make sure that these big pieces that are in the back
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are touching at least two different posts or different squares on your puzzle. So for example
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this flower right here is touching one, two, three and four different posts so when you are posting
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these designs on your Instagram feed they will look like if they were just one image. I'm going
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to continue working on this design just to make it look more cohesive. I want all the elements in
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the back to have a similar look at these blobs so I could either take one of these blobs, select the
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copy style tool and then click on one of the elements that I want to transfer this style to
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So I'm gonna click on this flower and see what happens. Okay this is looking good but I still
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want the flower to have this circle visible so I'm going to color and change the part in the middle
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and now that I like the style of this flower I'm going to select again the copy style tool
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and select the other flowers on my design. I'm going to do the same for the other blobs here
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I think I am almost done with this design. Now some extra information if you are new to Canva you can customize
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everything that you see on the screen. So if you want to change any text box you can double click
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on any of the text boxes to add more text or to customize your text. You can also change the color
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on any element that you see here in any text box so if you were to select any element in here you
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can change the color from here. To change any of the elements or the images that you see on your
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design you can go to elements and from here you can access the graphics library or the photo library
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To change any photo that you see on your design you can simply drag a new image on top of the one
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that you want to change. So for example I'm dragging this photo on top of this one and Canva
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automatically changes and it will also maintain the shape that we had on our template. Or if you
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want to add photos to a design that doesn't have any photos you can go below to the section that
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says frames. If you want to see more frames than the ones that you see here click see all and you
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can add any of these frames to your design. So let's say that I want to add this frame here
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I'm going to position this frame next to my quote and then going back to the elements library going
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to photos and then use one of these images and drop it inside the frame. Now let me show you
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a little trick that you can use to be able to visualize or to preview a single post as a
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standalone piece because remember that we are working on a puzzle but we also need to make sure
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that every single square on this puzzle looks good alone. For this you are going to press the R key
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on your keyboard which is going to bring a square shape to your design. You're going to bring this
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shape here and you're making it really big so it covers these three squares on the left and then
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we're going to change the color to black position to front. Now we are going to duplicate this
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square so copy and paste and position it here on your right. We're going to duplicate another time
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this element so you can now click duplicate. We have our duplicating here and this time I'm going
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to cover just the square on top and now duplicating this square and position it here below. Now we want
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to select all of these shapes and group them so I'm selecting this square here, pressing shift
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selecting this one below, now this one on the left and this one on the right and we are going to
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select the group button that we see above. As you can see we are isolating the design in the middle
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and like this we can really see if the design looks balanced. I think it is a little bit too
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high so I can move these black squares, select the elements on this page and move it below just a tiny
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bit. Now I'm repositioning my black squares on top and I think it looks a little bit more balanced
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now. I'm going to do the same trick for the other elements so I'm positioning these black squares
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now on this one and I'm going closer to the design to see if we need to align better some elements
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or to play around with the blobs in the back but I think it looks good. Now going back to the next
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one, this one looks good to me. I think I could maybe make these elements a little bit bigger
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Let me move this black shape a little bit more and make these elements just a tiny bit bigger
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and now let me preview it again. I think it looks nice, this one looks good as well. Going above, I can
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see that one of these blobs is above my text box I believe so I'm going to take this flower position
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to back. Yeah that's right and then I could either move this flower on top of this design I believe
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so the background on this design is not too saturated. It can work like this, this one we
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already checked it out, this one looks good to me, this one as well and this one can be a tiny bit
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bigger and here's another trick that you can use to adjust these elements. As you can see I want to
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select only these elements right here but sometimes some elements in the back will get in the way
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and if I want to resize them the elements in the back will also be resized. If you want to
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deselect these elements you're going to press shift and click on the elements that you want to
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remove from your selection and then adjust only the elements that you want to adjust. Let me preview
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this one again. Yeah this one looks much better now and this one looks also good to me. Now that
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I have checked all my Instagram posts I can delete this group of black shapes. I think my design is
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ready to be downloaded but I want to show you an extra tip that is going to be super useful. If you
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like the elements that you are using on your design but you want to use something that looks
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similar to them but not exactly the same you can select one of these elements so I'm gonna select
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one of these flowers then go to the toolbar and select the info icon and click see more like this
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This is going to bring a collection of elements that look similar to this one so you could either
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select this flower here or this one and then remember that you can copy and paste the style
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from your flower to the new flower and then play around with the new flower in the back of your
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design. You can do the same process for other shapes like for example this blob, go to info
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see more like this and you will see some other blob shapes that you could use on your design
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On the other hand if you want to find another completely different element you can go back
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and use the search bar. Now we're going to download this design right here. Remember that
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these purple lines we are not going to see them once we download the design because these are
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only guides but you can remove them before downloading so you can see exactly how your
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puzzle is going to look like on your Instagram feed. For this you are going again to file
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view settings and then select show rulers and guides. This is going to deactivate them and now
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you can see your final puzzle. Now to download your design go to share, download and then download
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Now let me show you another extra tip in case that you have a Canva Pro account. You're going to
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download it this way. Click share, download and then from here having selected png you are going
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to increase the size of your design. You can move the slider all the way to the right. This is going
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to increase the image size which is going to help with the blurry images. I know that sometimes when
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you post images on Instagram they may look a little bit blurry so this is going to help you with it
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Now once you have increased the image size all the way to the right click download. Also if you
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want to try this pro feature and you have a Canva free account we have a special link in the
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description so you can use Canva Pro for free during 45 days. That is 15 days more than what
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you would get in the Canva website. Now let me show you something. This is the design that I
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downloaded for free and this is the design that I have downloaded increasing the size with Canva Pro
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and as you can see both of them look exactly the same. So as you can see you can do amazing stuff
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with Canva free but let me show you what happens once I increase the size of this document. Now let
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me increase it to the same size. You can see that this one starts to look slightly more pixelated
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than this one. This one still looks very sharp and if I keep increasing the size this one still
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looks very crisp and sharp. So this last tip of using the pro downloading feature
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is just for those who care about the little little details. We have our Instagram post already but we need to split it into individual images so we can
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then post it on Instagram. We're gonna use this website right here because it has a tool that
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really helps us save a lot of time. I found it just a couple of days ago so I'm really happy to
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share it with you. We're gonna upload our Instagram puzzle image in here so click select image. You're
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gonna select your Instagram puzzle, click open. As you can see our Instagram puzzle appears in here
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and we have the grids where this is going to cut it. This looks perfect. Remember that we are cutting
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this image into a grid. This one has three columns so everything is perfect. I didn't have to tweak
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anything. Now we just need to split image. This just took a couple of seconds and just wanted to
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remind you that this is a free tool. Now we need to follow a very very important step so I want you
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to really pay attention. We need to download these images and at the same time as we are downloading
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them we are going to rename them. So we are going to make sure that we name the image on the right
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order that we need to post them on Instagram. This is the order you need to follow for the puzzle to
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look perfect on your Instagram feed. So we're going to start downloading these pieces one by one. We're
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going to start by this one, click on this arrow and we're going to name this image one. Save. We're
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going to continue with number two. Two. Save. Number three. Rename it to three. Save. Now number four
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Five. Six. Seven. Eight. And nine
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Ten. Now that you have every single piece of the puzzle ready to be published you can either
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take them all and publish them all at the same time so you can see the puzzle ready on your feed
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or you can post them one by one, you know like maybe one post every day or maybe one post every
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week. It depends on you how frequently you want to publish but either way both of these options
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are fine. The next step is to bring all of these documents, all of the pieces of your puzzle to
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your phone. I'm going to airdrop them because I'm using a Mac and also an iPhone so that makes it
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easy. I'm selecting them all, right click, share, airdrop and I am selecting my iPhone. You can also
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send these images by email to your phone or you could also connect your phone to your computer to
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transfer the images. Now that I have all the images on my phone I'm gonna start posting them
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You're gonna go to your profile and select the plus icon at the bottom of the screen. From here
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you need to be very very careful with the order in which you start posting your images to your feed
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to make sure that your puzzle looks perfect. So you're going to make sure that you are posting
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image number one so if you want you can go back to your computer to double check which one is
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image number one. So it is this one right here, tap next, next. From here you can add a caption, tag
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people, add location, you know like add all the settings that you want and then hit share. First
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image of the puzzle is already published and I'm going for image number one. I'm double checking
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on my computer which one it is, going to my phone, tapping on the plus icon below, finding the right
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image, next, next, add a caption if you want, tag people, add location and then share. I'm just waiting
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for the second image to be published and I'll be following the same steps. So image number three
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double checking, going to my profile on my phone, tapping on the plus icon, finding the right image
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then hit next, next and share. I have reached this image which I know it is a carousel I want to post on my Instagram feed
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So I'm going back to Canva because I need to finalize this carousel before posting. I'm going
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to social media, Instagram post square, create blank and remember to paste here this special
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keyword in case that you are working with this same collection. I'm going to find my carousel
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clicking on this template and then apply all five pages. I'm going to delete the cover because we
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already have the one that is going to fit perfectly our puzzle and then from here you can customize
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the text, add images or even elements. What I do suggest is that you don't change the elements in
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the back because as you can see this carousel is a seamless carousel meaning that every page has
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something in between them to make them look as if they were just one image which is a pretty
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cool effect and it is also very trendy. Once you have finished customizing your carousel you're
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going to download it so go to share, download and then download. I'm going to follow exactly the
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same process as before. I'm going to send these images to my phone and then I'll be able to post
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this carousel. I have all the pieces of my carousel now on my phone and I'm going to continue using
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my computer to see what's the next image. It is this one so I'm going back to my profile
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tapping on the plus icon below then I'm making sure to select this image as the cover so it is
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this one right here and then the next step to be able to post a carousel is to select this icon
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right here. This is going to allow you to add more pages to your post. Now on my computer I'm going to
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double check which is the second page on my carousel and then I'm going to select it on my
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phone then the second image is this one, next one is this one and last one this one. Remember to also
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pay attention to the order in which you insert the images on your carousel as this one is going to
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have this seamless effect and we want it to look perfect. Okay so this one is the cover, this may
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not match the carousel as we changed the order of the elements but then you will see that page
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number two connects with the following and so on. Once your carousel looks perfect, hit next and
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share. Once your carousel is published you are going to continue publishing the rest of your
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puzzles so I'm going for piece number eight. This is the one with the flowers, next, next, share and
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the last image is this one so tapping on the plus icon finding the right image and then publishing
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it. And our Instagram puzzle feed is ready. I believe it looks very very professional and very
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cute. From here you can recognize that we have a carousel post because we have this little icon on
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the corner of this post so when you click on this post you can see the following pages and this one
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in particular has this seamless effect which is very trendy right now
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The last tip that I want to share here today is that you can transform these Instagram puzzle
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pieces into real covers and this is pretty easy. I'm going to show you quickly how to do it. You're
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going to Canva.com, open the social media tab and from here you are going to select this option that
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says Instagram real, create blank. You're going to upload the piece of the puzzle that you want to
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convert into an Instagram real cover. You're going to upload, upload files, select the piece of the
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puzzle, click open and bring this image to your design. You're going to stretch this image until
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the laterals touch the edge of the page. The next step is to select the background of your design
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go to color, select the plus icon, then the color picker and select the color from the background
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of your design. You can leave this design as it is and download it or if you want to add more details
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to this real cover you can go to elements and search for blob, go to graphics and select any
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of the blobs in here to match the ones on your design. So I'm gonna try to match this one here
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position back, go to color, select the color picker and grab the color from the blob in your design
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You could even go further and try to find the same flowers on your design and then add them to the
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background so they fit or they fill these sections that are empty. I think I'm gonna go with just a
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plain background, go to share, download, make sure that you are downloading it as a png and then
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download. And that's it! You can use this image as an Instagram real cover, just remember to use it in
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the right order. If you like this video remember to give us a thumbs up and also I would suggest
30:34
you click the join button so you can learn more about our engaging learning experience, exclusive
30:39
access and personalized support. And to get a 45-day free trial of Canva Pro you can click here
30:46
You will also find the links that I mentioned in the description. Well that's it for today, I really
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hope you enjoyed this tutorial and hope to see you in the next one. Bye
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