There are many online graphics and photo editors to choose from, but how big an image can they create? Some limit the size but DesignCap creates huge poster-size images in a browser.
There are some great online image editors and image design tools, but often they are limited. Many are geared towards creating small images for showing on computers and websites, but a few can handle full size photos from a camera.
There are not many that can create images large enough for printing posters and flyers a couple of feet across. Very high resolution images are required for large poster-size prints.
Canva is one popular online image creator, but it has a maximum image size of 25 megapixels. You might think that is quite big, and it is, but DesignCap can create close to 35 megapixel images, which is a massive 4959 x 7015 pixels. That is large enough to print posters two or three feet tall at a reasonable resolution.
Go to the DesignCap website and get started by clicking the Make a Free Poster/Flyer button. There is a Sign Up button, but you can create posters and flyers without signing up. It runs in a web browser and so it works on Windows PCs and Apple Macs.
Choose a poster template
There are five sections and the toolbar down the left side is used to select them. The first is Template and there are hundreds of designs to choose from, organised into 30+ categories. After selecting a category the template thumbnails are displayed and you can scroll through them and select the one you need.
Everything about the template can be changed, so it does not have to be perfect and the idea is that it is used as a starting point for your own poster design. Choose something that is similar to what you want.
Add photos to the poster
Any element can be replaced or items can be added, such as photos and other images. There are three tabs and images can be uploaded from the computer’s disk, so you could upload photographs you have taken with a camera or phone. Alternatively, photos can be imported from Facebook.
DesignCap has access to free photos from Pixabay and there are more than half a million images to choose from. There are no costs or licensing fees. Enter a keyword or two into the search box and a collection of matching thumbnail images are displayed. These can be added to your poster.
When an image is selected, a panel appears next to it containing two tabs. There is a Property tab and this enables the image to be rotated, flipped or cropped. Every item on the page is on a layer and buttons in the panel enable the image to be brought forward or sent back, so it can be placed on top or underneath other items.
The Effect tab has slider controls for adjusting the opacity, exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation and hue. There is also a small collection of Filters of the type found in Instagram and photo editing apps.
Add or edit text
The text in the template can be edited by double clicking it. A selection of fonts is provided and there are plain and simple ones for ordinary text and fancy ones that are used on poster headings to make them stand out.
The text can be made bold, italic, underlined, left or right aligned, or centered. Some types of text can have outlines, colours, glow and other special effects. This looks great on posters. Extra large text is needed for poster size images and the size can be entered. That’s 164 pt in the image above.
Add clipart to your poster
There is a large collection of clipart organised into 11 different categories like Shape, Icon, Funny, Love, Nature and so on. Some categories have dozens of objects that can be added to the poster with a click of the mouse.
They can be positioned by dragging them and resized with the handles. A pop-up panel enables them to be flipped and coloured. Sometimes different parts of the clipart object can be coloured. It can be made semi-transparent too.
Set the poster background
The poster background can be a solid colour, blend fill, a pattern or an image. You can select one of the colour chips or define your own colours and add them.
Output the poster image
The poster can be printed yourself if you have a suitable printer. Most people have A4 printers and these are fine for small flyers. It is possible to print larger images across several sheets of paper which then can be taped together to create the poster.
However, it is best to download the image and get it professionally printed where they have printers that can output A3 or larger posters relatively cheaply. The size of the image can be selected from Small, Medium, Large and XLarge when downloading.
Small images are 1587 x 2245 pixels and at the other end of the scale, XLarge size is 4959 x 7015 pixels. DesignCap produces very large images and in either PNG or JPG file formats. An XLarge image downloaded as a PNG was a 33 MB file!
Summing up
DesignCap is an excellent tool for creating extra large fun images that can be printed on poster-size paper – it can easily fill A4, A3 and even A2 paper, which is 16.5 x 23.4 inches. Reduce the resolution slightly when printing and images will go even bigger.
It has photos and clipart, fonts and backgrounds, and hundreds of templates to choose from. Everything is very easy to use and if you have used this type of app before, you won’t even need to read the online tutorials. Everything is quite obvious. It is recommended.
It is a great tool and the only minor improvement I would like is smaller images, such as those used for Pinterest, Facebook, featured images on websites and so on. You can always download a Small size image and then resize it in a photo editor on your computer though.
