Hey everyone Patrik CK here with an impressive piece of software that shows off just how
far we’ve come with AI powered programs in the creative realm.
Nvidia’s Canvas software turns doodled drawings into impressive practically photorealistic
landscape photos thanks to the power of AI, our future overlord.
With the release of Canvas 1.1 a more powerful AI model and higher res results make Canvas
even better and easier to use.
Let’s go over how to use Canvas to make your own realistic landscape photos.
Install the beta using the link in the description and follow along!
Quick note you will have to have a RTX series card and the latest drivers to use this app.
When you first launch Canvas the first thing you’ll notice are the two side by side canvases.
The left being what they call the Segmentation Map, we’ll see why it’s called that in
a minute.
On the right is the Output Image, this is where the final results will appear.
You can actually draw in both, we’ll see how that works later.
The left toolbar has the tools like the brush, eraser, line tool, size selection, etcetera.
Along the top are the file options, undo, redo, navigation and all the way to the right
feedback and settings.
Lastly and most importantly in the right column you have the Material Palette, Styles, and
Layer options, we’ll go over each as we start working.
The way this works is you select what to paint using the material palette window.
There are 20 materials available from sky and clouds, to water and grass.
Conceptually you’re choosing what elements to draw and the program applies the texture
from the material palette, hence the segmentation.
Then when drawing multiple materials next to each other they are blended together but
unlike any blending you’ve seen before where two materials just fade into each other Canvas
takes it to another level.
To see this in action let's first select the Brush tool.
Then select a material like grass and draw a line across the middle of the Segmentation
Map.
Just to point out that by default the canvas is already filled with the Sky material, that’s
why there’s an image already being generated even before you start.
Now switch to Fill and fill in the bottom half of the map with the same grass material.
Now you should basically have a meadow on a clear day.
From here I typically like to add basic shapes of other textures.
Switch back to the brush and select the water material and draw a triangle on top of the
grass in one corner.
Now you’ve got meadow leading into a lake or pond.
Draw another triangle overlapping on the horizon using the Hill material.
Add another triangle of the Bush material in the bottom corner.
Already we have something that looks pretty nice.
How about we add a beach by drawing along the water using the Sand material.
Don’t be afraid to have wavy lines, it adds to the natural look.
Let’s make the sky a little more interesting by adding some clouds with the Cloud Material.
I typically start with drawing lines across the sky but do whatever you like here.
Remember you can change your brush size whenever you want.
Look at that, it’s practically done already!
Of course you can keep going if you want.
I do find adding more elements increases the realism as long as you do it in a natural
way.
We can add some Forest on the hills and more.
With a good base like this my advice is to just play around.
You can add some more mountains, rocks, a stream.
If you make a mistake you can always undo the last few actions.
Now that we have something pretty to look at, let’s go over the Styles section.
Each style has its own color profile, lighting, and mood that automatically gets applied to
your project.
If you want a night scene go with the third style, early morning the first style, and
so on and so forth.
Plenty of default options to choose from.
What’s really cool is you can upload your own image under styles.
When you do the program takes the color palette and profile and applies it to your project.
This feature gives you so much flexibility with your creativity since you can upload
practically any image to use it as a style guide.
Now for the last section, Layers.
Layers allow you to split up your materials so that you can easily hide or show parts
of your project and make editing specific pieces much easier without impacting other
materials.
I’ve found that starting off with a layer filled with the cloud material makes it easier
to get the look you want later even if all your other materials are on a single separate
layer.
That’s pretty much it when it comes to using the tools and starting to make your own landscape
shots using AI!
When you are happy with your work and ready to show it off you can select the export button
in the top toolbar.
You’ll get two export options PSD or PNG.
The PSD exports the doodle and the final result layered separately.
Or you can just go with the PNG to share with your friends.
If you're like me you may still want to take it through Photoshop, Lightroom, or your preferred
photo editor for some additional flare, totally up to you.
You can also save your work using the standard save icon, these files will be saved in Nvidia’s
proprietary canvas file format.
There are a couple of downsides for the moment with this app.
The exports are limited to 1024 by 1024 pixels which is a little small for me but it should
be fine to share on the major social media sites but don’t expect to see a lot of detail
when you zoom in.
As you may have noticed the canvas itself is square without the ability to change the
layout so if you know that you want a wide angle view you’ll have to remember as you're
working that you’ll eventually be cropping the final result.
While the AI does do a lot of the work you still need to know a little about perspective
and composition to make a decent photo but once you start playing around with it, it
becomes literal child’s play to pump out some impressive results and scare yourself.
Speaking of child's play, if you have young kids, nieces, nephews who like to doodle landscapes,
this is one powerful tool to take their imagination to the next level, just keep the whole AI
overlord thing hush hush.
At the end of the day I would simply suggest trying it out for yourself and really have
some fun with it!
Be warned that you’ll get sucked in real quick, I must have spent at least four hours
creating dozens of designs when I first installed Canvas.
To wrap it up, here are a few time-lapses of me doing some more images, each one only
taking a few minutes to create with stunning results.
Here’s one where I only drew in the results pane.
That’s for this overview if you enjoyed it please leave a like and share so others
can find this content in the future.
Until next time, this has been Patrik CK, goodbye.