(Image credit: Canva/Affinity)

Massive Canva update aims to "automate the tedious, keep the craft"

by · Creative Bloq

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Canva has unveiled the Canva ProSuite, a new offer that brings together Affinity, Cavalry, Flourish and Leonardo, with more than 100 new features releasing across the four apps.

It's the second major feature announcement from Canva this month, following an update to its Visual Suite. This time the focus is squarely on professional users: designers, animators, photographers and data storytellers who have spent the past year watching Canva grow its toolset significantly via acquisitions.

Crucially – and I know this what everyone will be worrying about – Affinity and Cavalry's core apps will stay free. Upgrading to a paid plan will only offer you extras (the AI Studio in Affinity and team features) and not the tools professionals need to create with. Check out the full feature list here, or read on for the highlights.

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What's new in Affinity

The Blend Tool(Image credit: Canva/Affinity)

Firstly, there's the Blend Tool, which Affinity says was one of its community's most-requested features. Rather than hand-placing every step of a transitional effect, you can now sculpt it live, using bias and easing to control where it speeds up or bunches, with elements distributed evenly along a curve by true distance rather than stretched to fit. This is a really fiddly problem in vector work, so if it performs as described, it will be a real time-saver.

There's also a streamlined Mask Tool, native 3D model support, and INDD import for pulling legacy InDesign files in directly. This is excellent news, and makes it much easier for anyone migrating from Adobe.

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(Image credit: Canva/Affinity)

For photographers, there is an improved RAW engine, batch imports, reusable colour looks, and an AI Scene Decomposition tool that attempts to split a flattened image back into editable layers. Users also get a dedicated Astrophotography Studio, plus scripting support that lets users automate repetitive tasks across vector, pixel and layout work in a single script – or, via a Claude AI connector, describe the automation in plain language instead of writing it.

Scripting in Affinity(Image credit: Canva/Affinity)

What's new in Cavalry

Multiple Generate in Calvary(Image credit: Canva/Affinity)

Cavalry is Canva's motion design tool. The update adds more than 50 features and enhancements, including a new Metaballs shape, Lighting, Twist and Ripple filters, an enhanced Isolines shape and a reworked Graph Editor. AI additions include Remove Background, Generate Vector and Image to Layers tools.

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Calvary Hand-off(Image credit: Canva/Affinity)

Canva says selected elements of a Cavalry animation – text or colour, for instance – will soon be editable directly inside Canva itself, while the core scene stays locked. In theory, that means motion designers build the polished, on-brand asset once, then hand it off for others to tweak without the constant back-and-forth of adaptation requests.

Affinity files can now also be imported directly into Cavalry, and both apps add support for Canva Sheets, which tightens the pipeline between design, animation and data.

The bigger picture

Canva says that "professional craft matters more than ever" in an AI-saturated industry (see more on why it's taking the AI additions more slowly than other platforms). Canva is continuing to group together its acquisitions (Affinity, Cavalry, Flourish, Leonardo) into a single ecosystem, maybe in hopes that convenience and interoperability will keep professionals inside its orbit rather than reaching for standalone Adobe alternatives.

Canva says the rollout starts now, with more updates promised as each product matures.