---
title: 'Making Stream Overlays in CANVA & Photopea a Guide'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=_yyfpu5zl20'
video_id: '_yyfpu5zl20'
date: 2026-06-18
duration_sec: 0
---

# Making Stream Overlays in CANVA & Photopea a Guide

> Source: [Making Stream Overlays in CANVA & Photopea a Guide](https://youtube.com/watch?v=_yyfpu5zl20)

## Summary

The video critiques Canva for professional graphic design, arguing it's only suitable for quick, one-off social media posts. The creator then demonstrates how to build a Twitch intermission overlay in Canva, highlighting its limitations, before showing a more powerful and flexible approach using the free tool Photopea. The video also includes a sponsored segment for Own3d Pro, which offers pre-made goal bars and overlays.

### Key Points

- **Canva's Use Case** [0:16] — Canva is great for quick, disposable social media graphics but not for professional, branded designs.
- **Sponsor: Own3d Pro Goal Bars** [1:10] — Own3d Pro offers 600+ overlays, a chat bot, and a new goal bar tool that can be easily added to OBS.
- **Canva Limitations** [4:29] — In Canva, you cannot add outlines to shapes, control stroke thickness, or export with true transparency.
- **OBS Setup for Canva Overlay** [10:03] — To use a Canva overlay in OBS, you must use a chroma key or color key filter to remove the background color.
- **Photopea Advantages** [13:25] — Photopea allows adding strokes, drop shadows, bevels, and adjusting opacity, giving much more creative control.
- **Transparency in Photopea** [18:14] — In Photopea, you can create a transparent overlay by using a raster mask and inverting it, avoiding the need for chroma key.
- **Conclusion: Quality Over Speed** [19:00] — The extra steps in Photopea result in a significantly better-looking overlay that stands out.

## Transcript

in one of my most recent videos i said a
lot of negative things about canva and
some people were not happy with what i
said okay i realized that canva is
probably the worst tool that you can
possibly use to do anything remotely
creative i kind of stand by that but
keep in mind that canva is actually a
great system if you want to do like
one-off things right you have a new
schedule you would like to make a cute
visual post it on twitter and then boom
get rid of it you're done canva is great
for that you want to make a quick
instagram story kind of is great for
that but if you want to do proper
graphic design if you're designing
something where it has to do with your
brand and you have to pick a specific
graphic style and you want it to look as
good as possible and indistinguishable
from other people's stuff then canva is
not that good if you're watching this
and you're an avid canva user you can't
tell me that every time you go to a
twitch stream and they use canva you can
immediately tell that's a problem
because as soon as everything becomes
uniform then where's the creativity in
that that being said today we're going
to be using canva to make a twitch
overlay we're gonna be making an
intermission screen only using canva
maybe i'll quickly show you how to make
one in photo p after that but if you
don't wanna go through the trouble of
meticulously creating your own graphics
then you're gonna be happy because
today's sponsor basically takes care of
all that if for some reason you don't
know anything about owned pro it is an
all-in-one service that gives you
everything you need in order to be a
successful live streamer you get access
to a lot of overlays i'm talking a lot
i'm talking 600 plus overlays that are
each available in at least nine
languages all the overlays are one-click
installed so no stress for that you get
a twitch chat bot to moderate your chat
and also add custom commands but this is
not what we're here to talk about they
just added this new thing if you go in
your dashboard and you go to tools you
will find gold bars so yes that makes
the rest of this video irrelevant
because you can just go up there click
create goal select what type of goal you
want subscriber goal for example put a
title help me get a glittering unicorn
and then you can choose your style and
of course in good old owned fashion you
have a ton of options like a lot
let's go with the arcade pro just click
here to select it and then enter the
goal amount boom let's go for 50 subs
then you can set for the goal to end at
a specific date or not click save and
publish from there it's easy peasy copy
your url to the clipboard go to your obs
add it as a browser source and boom you
have a way better looking sub goal than
the original twitch one keeping in mind
that you can set it up for follows you
can set it up for bits and for donations
anyways i'll let you check it out over
at own dot gt level pro that is o w n 3d
dot gg slash get level pro so we go to
canva.com and we are already logged in
usually you would want to type whatever
you want to create let's say twitch
overlay for example i haven't seen what
they have let's click on that and see
what's up so a lot of those actually
just look like webcam borders like this
one is just a thin line i guess you
could call that an overlay but it
doesn't give you anything that that
differs from a webcam overlay right some
of them do have the labels bar like this
one but as you can see it's paid that
this one is also paid that is legit a
two minute design on on photo pia
anyways
[Music]
i'm gonna stop this lander i'm gonna go
ahead and i'm gonna click i'm gonna
create something similar because i don't
really have a choice let's click on
create a design and let's go with custom
size this time we want to go
1920 by 1080 and then create new design
nice while we're here we're going to go
to photos on the left side here and
we're going to find something cool i'm
going to type something like uh abstract
okay so i do have some stuff with
transparency which is which is cool i
guess this is pretty nice i might get
back to this later is that text on top
of it oh those are pro
i can't use those
oh no all right let's use this i'm gonna
click and drag the corners to make it
bigger nice and basically on an
intermission screen what you usually
want is a space for your webcam to be
like full screen basically and then a
place for your chat and then a spot for
your labels bars some intermission
screens will have a spot for your
gameplay like if you're in the lobby or
something like that or if you want to
display your logo if you want to play
some clips whatever you want to do it's
cool to have like a cool empty space
like that so we're going to go to
elements or basically going to put a
bunch of rectangles it would be cool if
i could find like some rounded
rectangles or maybe some some extra let
me click on lines and shapes and see
what i can find and that's it that's all
i get when it comes to lines and shapes
all right looks like there is a rounded
rectangle here so i'm going to click on
that can i have like an outline uh no i
don't okay canva is like no you can't
you just can't have an outline on your
uh let me delete that and click on that
one that one comes with an outline nice
please tell me i can i can control the
thickness of the outline
nope all right now i can't uh let's
delete that one and let's try this one
at least it has a thinner what is this
why is there two what is going on nope i
guess we're gonna go with the simple one
then okay cool cool cool
now if i stretch it out will it maintain
the proportions of the rounded uh
rectangle let's see
it does that is cool that is great that
is amazing it's not stretching it out
it's really keeping the curve
really really really curvy the way it's
supposed to be i love that all right so
we're gonna go for something that is
kind of like a wide screen we're gonna
have the labels bar at the bottom of the
webcam so this is the spot where the
webcam is gonna be nice and we're gonna
have the chat on the right here and then
we'll keep a spot for that lobby
gameplay basically boom click on it
again let's do that i'm i'm actually
really happy about the proportions here
let's click on that now for the gameplay
it doesn't really matter if it uh if we
have a 16 by nine we're gonna eyeball it
so that it's it's closer to 16 by nine
on this spot it really doesn't matter
that much you're not meant to actually
watch the gameplay from there okay cool
what i'm actually technically i could be
like hey you're done
but let me go ahead and add some stuff
for the labels we're gonna add three of
them maybe another rounded rectangle one
and this time i'm gonna grab that
oh i can't stretch that out
anymore
that kind of sucks let's see if i have
any other options maybe a thin rounded
rectangle would be cool nope now the
quote-unquote rules of graphic design
makes it so that hey i started with
something rounded i got to keep it
rounded in order to maintain the style
but i'm struggling to find something
that i can make very very thin and also
rounded i guess that's the closest one
let's click on that
and let's see
i can't even stretch that from top to
bottom oh my god
like that maybe nice okay that's cool
that's cool okay uh top here what is
that transparency let me lower that a
little bit
actually i'm gonna give it color first
so we want to basically go with those
blue colors that's pretty cool that it
takes the photo colors and it gives you
the main colors here so that's that's
pretty nice so that's my main color is
it okay how do i change the secondary
color
right there
nice i like that okay we're gonna lower
the transparency a little bit
nice and we're gonna duplicate this how
do i duplicate okay copy
paste
nice we're gonna keep it in line paste
keep it in line nice can i select
multiple things let me hold shift
yes okay look at that look at me being
all positive about canva is that
beautiful i can even scale them together
pretty nice if i really wanted to i
would keep this i would like put this
here but let's put it down there the
thing is we're gonna cut out those parts
once we get into obs later on and then
from here what i would want is basically
add some some logos so i can go there
and i can upload some stuff but usually
you want a heart for follows you want a
star for subscribers you want a bit icon
for the cheers which is probably the
only thing that i'm gonna upload here
let me click upload media and i'm gonna
go find in my stocks that diamond right
there nice i'm gonna click on it
boom
doesn't matter if the the edges are so
jagged because i can lower it like that
okay not bad can i zoom in on this yes i
can the bottom here there's a zoom thing
okay not too bad not too bad let's see
if they actually give me some um some
icons like a heart okay i just want like
i just want a normal
shape or maybe in shapes actually i
didn't look for a heart or anything are
there no hearts in the shapes there's no
way there's a heart here okay there we
go nice i'm gonna change the color
doesn't have to go with red i might even
keep it purple just for the spirit of
twitch
so i can use my arrows to move things
around all right and let's say we want a
crown so i'm gonna go under elements and
lines and shapes actually no i want a
star that's for subscribers
all right this is what we made does it
look good uh no but you made it with
canva so
i'm gonna click on that bits icon and
there's edit image here i wanna see what
that does oh i can just add a bunch of
filters and i just put a color
all right let's actually give those some
colors
see how that looks i really don't like
how it looks i really don't like how it
looks but anyways chat is not going to
be transparent so we actually do want to
have a certain um color there so i'm
going to pick that i'm going to give it
that color and i'm going to make that
transparent too so reminisce of um the
labels bar nice so your chat is gonna
appear here give it a cool look and then
the rest if you want you could even go
like with a green screen right you can
make this green make that green and then
you just chroma key it but you don't it
doesn't matter what color you pick just
pick something that is not blue like
your background all right let's click
share
and download png even though we can't
have transparency click download
click save and you're good now let's
open up obs i'm going to create a new
scene all right and now i'm going to add
it as an image because that's what it is
png image and click add go to image and
go find you can call it whatever you
want you can go find it it's right there
double click
click ok
right click filters plus to add a new
filter and you can use chroma key if
you're gonna use green or you can use
color key and then pick whatever color
you picked for your transparent parts
right so chroma key okay it's already
transparent nice now what i can do is
add my camera for example so you're
gonna click plus to add a new source
you're gonna click video capture device
call it whatever you want it's gonna be
your camera call it camera and then uh
wait
oh hi it's me boom actually want to flip
this so right click transform flip
horizontal nice you want to drag this
behind our overlay right because it's
transparent and boom there you are now
you can adjust it or you can keep it
that way if you want to i'm going to
adjust it
that it really fits that screen that we
created
and in here uh you would put your game
capture device right on the top right
side i don't have a game open so i can
just put a media i can just put a video
of a game right so that would be the
game again drag it underneath the
overlay and then place it to make it fit
it doesn't matter if it doesn't fit
perfectly no one's going to actually be
watching the gameplay from uh this
screen it's also under my webcam i uh i
cropped and i didn't tell you how to
crop it uh you hold alt on your keyboard
and then you drag the sides to crop
right
that way you can fit anything into
anything boom just like that so while
you're in the lobby you're in your
intermission screen i'm not going to
show you how to add your chat watch my
full obs tutorial for that if you're
using stream elements if you're using
streamlabs you just go you add a chat
and then you add it as a browser source
but this is it with canva you
successfully made this overlay uh now
before i go i just want to show you how
quickly you can do it while using uh
photopia for example and why i don't use
canva let's go to photopia.com i'm gonna
try to comment uh to comment everything
i'm doing a new project we're gonna go
1080p 1920 1080 and we're gonna go 300
dpi high quality now if we wanted to go
from a picture we would go from for a
website that has um copyright free
images we will go to abstract and we can
find whatever we want i like that one
copy this one and the advantage with
photopia is that you really have access
to everything i'm going to press ctrl v
boom i'm going to press ctrl t to
transform and i'm just going to drag
this until it fills the whole thing nice
press v to go to the move tool in case
you weren't there and now i'm going to
use my rectangle tool to the left here
boom i can click here and if i want it
to be rounded i can just add a corner
radius but we're not gonna do that now
i'm just gonna drag like this and i'm
gonna eyeball i can hold space to move
it while i'm adding it okay that's nice
while i'm there i'm gonna move my mouse
a little bit and i'm gonna create the
box for the chat nice and i'm gonna
quickly create the one for the gameplay
now i can go and individually modify
them ctrl alt t by clicking on the layer
and i can hold shift to stretch just
like that and if i have the move tool
selected pressing v i can move them with
my arrows on my keyboard okay boom boom
boom
that's pretty nice i'm going to group
those i'm going to put them all together
and i'm going to press ctrl g boom
they're in a group i can move them
together i can turn them off but i'm
going to duplicate this group because i
just want to have borders i'm going to
duplicate this by holding alt and
dragging up
bone i have two groups i can turn one
off and i'm going to add some borders
and there's multiple ways of doing this
if you have
shapes you can just click the shape tool
and then add a stroke but i'm going to
use the effects panel because it's one
of the most powerful things that both
photo pi and photoshop have add a stroke
boom it actually added it but it's also
red so you can't see it i'm going to go
and click that color as soon as you have
a color picker it's uh gonna turn into a
color picker so you can just pick
whatever color you want from anywhere
you want right we're adding it to the
stroke right so this color is like a
blue so i'm gonna exaggerate that blue a
little bit maybe not too much nice i'm
gonna click ok and here i can check the
width of the stroke let's go for six i
really want it to be visible actually
let's go for eight all right that's nice
no never mind let's go for four
okay cool let's add a drop shadow nice
so now it feels like it's uh it's
physically there it's hovering above
that wall we're gonna play with the
angle and this is basically the angle
where the light would be coming from so
down that way let's bump up the distance
a little bit we can make it a little
softer with the size it just looks
better
now even more than that we can add a
bevel and emboss to make it like bump up
a little bit you see that the cool thing
is with transparency later on we're
gonna be able to to play around with
that a little bit so i want the depth to
be a little bit more we actually want
the size to be a little lower we don't
want that effect to be too visible three
should be fine maybe two actually that's
good okay click okay
and let's say i want more saturation on
that red i'm gonna click on that layer
so whatever i add next is going to be on
top of it i'm going to add an adjustment
layer which is going to be vibrance all
right and i'm going to bump up the
vibrance so we have better colors
basically i'm done with this i can click
on anything else you can even turn off
this panel and remember the red is all
the parts that are going to be
transparent we're not actually going to
use this specific red we're going to use
the red from the background let me add
my labels bars actually let me create
that by doing this i'm just going to
click on the rectangle tool i'm gonna
put one rectangle down and now since we
are working with some sort of arrow
shape like that i'm gonna click and hold
on that tool i'm gonna go to custom
shape and up top here where it says
shape i'm supposed to find a bunch of
shape whatever shape i want i'm gonna
click on this arrow shape right there
and i'm gonna create one
i'm gonna hold shift to maintain
proportions so it's kind of perfect you
know and we want it big like that let's
drop it okay it created a new shape now
i can ctrl alt t right click flip
horizontally and drop it towards the
middle we want the arrow to show
let's click enter and let's double click
on the icon of the shape and let's pick
the color that we want i think that
color is nice
cool i'm going to hold alt while i click
on that arrow so it basically will limit
itself to the rectangle underneath it
boom now i can move it around and it's
not going to move away from that
rectangle basically right
nice okay now let's pick actual colors
double click on this being the rectangle
at the bottom and pick a color that
really resembles the actual red that you
have here if that's what you want you
can also go with white for example but i
kind of like this red nice click okay
now you successfully created one labels
bar i can press ctrl select the arrow
that's on top of it hold alt drag drop
and just move it
if you want to learn another way to
duplicate is while i'm in here and i
know both of those are selected i can
hold alt
drag and drop and then drop it i'm going
to select all of them the whole labels
bar and i'm going to control g to group
them that way i can go to the frames
here they have this effect that i added
the bevel and emboss stroke drop shadow
i can hold alt drag
and then just drop it
boom and now they have the same now the
shadow is not what i want it to be i can
double click on it manage the distance a
little bit maybe i don't want to stroke
on that one
nice click okay you're good now you just
want to add the shapes i have a folder
with a bunch of shapes here so the bit i
can drag
drop
it's right there
hold alt
to drag from the center place it with
the arrows you have a heart that would
be for followers same thing
and let's say if you wanted a crown
for like top donator or something like
that you just place it and you're good
now there's a couple of things i want to
do i want the chat to be visible so
we're not gonna keep it with that bright
red so it's that top folder it should be
that one i'm gonna double click on the
icon and i'm gonna pick a color that i
have around here okay
boom that's nice i can even go to
opacity here and lower it just a little
bit nice so that's going to be the chat
the other thing i want to do is select
those two shapes so i'm going to hold
ctrl on my keyboard and i'm going to
click on the icons
then i'm going to hold control plus
shift to add another selection
click on that icon so i have two of them
selected i'm gonna collapse the group
and now i'm gonna group everything
together holding shift here clicking on
the bottom and i'm gonna group them ctrl
g nice now at the bottom of my layer
list i can click on
raster mask created a mask and don't
worry don't worry press ctrl i to invert
the mask boom and there you go now i can
turn off the background lock
and turn it off
and i have a pre-transparent
intermission overlay all i have to do
now is click on file export as png click
save click save how do i add it to obs
the same way except with less steps
let's go here and i'm gonna turn off
this overlay or better yet i can just
double click on the overlay and then
replace it click browse
new one already transparent
nice you don't even need the filter but
the filter is added now and now you just
have to adjust a couple of things you
want that camera to really fit nice you
want that media source you want that
gameplay to be right there and that's
the big difference between canva and
something like photopia it's not
necessarily more complicated maybe
there's more steps to it but that's the
whole thing adding more steps like hey
this would be cool if i could add a
border to it if i could add a drop
shadow to it yes that's the step that
you're gonna add but it's gonna make
your thing look significantly better and
it gives you more possibilities
unlocking your own creativity so of
course i'm not telling you to not use
canva at least not this time but i'm
showing you how easy you could be making
better stuff simply adding a little bit
of glow a little bit of shadows can
really make your work stand out anyways
hopefully you learned something in this
video and if you have any questions you
can leave them in the comment section
below for now i gotta thank you for
watching i'll see you guys next time go
out there make me proud get level out